the just concluded panchayat elections in Karnataka mark a watershed in the history of the movement for democratic decentralisation.

the fact that the political parties failed to receive the mandate from the rural electorate is more reflective of their callous ignorance of the issues.

all of them treated the panchayat elections as something to gain power instead of treating as the one pertaining to the governance of the rural local self government institutions.

None of the political parties addressed themselves to the real issues and had anything to offer to the electorate by way of thier commitment to the cause of empowerment of the panchayat raj institutions and how they would strive to remove the hurdles coming in the way.

Even the congress, which has made quite significant contribution was notnot able to spell out what it has done and what it proposed to do and paid a price for its total ignorance of the concept of the decentralisation.