Pradhans apply for divorce to save their office of profit

Vijay Upadhyay
Agra. The nationwide debate over holding "office of profit" that took the toll of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and SP MP Jaya Bachchan has now hit the lowest levels of Governance in Uttar Pradesh.

With the state Government issuing an order restraining the relatives of a village pradhan from holding any "office of profit", which in this case are the ration shops; the village pradhans in Agra are scrambling to dissociate themselves from their husbands or wives by getting a "legal divorce" through the court, while living together.

Talking to The Pioneer, R.R. Pal, District Supply Officer, Agra said that there were 1236 ration shops in Agra district catering to about 8 lakh people, living both above and below the poverty lines. Out of these, a large proportion of ration shops belonged to the relatives of village pradhans, with the possession being either between husband-wives or father-sons.

He said that the state Government has recently issued an order that restricts the village pradhans from allotting any ration shops to their near-relatives and in pursuance to this order, the state Government had cancelled nine ration shop licenses belonging to the "Pradhan-patis" following which, they had moved into the court and obtained stays on the cancellation of their licenses but the Government was still pursuing the case.

Fearing that they could lose their licenses permanently if they lost their cases in the court, these village heads have come up with a novel idea of saving their shops. A number of the women pradhans have recently applied in the Agra court for a "divorce" from their husbands while the male pradhans are also following suit, to save their ration shops that they have held for as long as ten years in some cases, each getting the allotment of the shop owing to their husband or wife being elected in this position.

Interestingly, after the order being issued by the state Government, three of these village heads have divorced their husbands, even though they were still "living together".

But probably even this extreme step is not enough to save these pradhans from losing their "ration shops" as the State Government is not ready to recognise the divorces. According to Mr. Pal, the order was still applicable on these ration shops as the licenses had been obtained by the licensees under the political influence of their husband or wife who had been elected as pradhan and the shops shall be cancelled, notwithstanding the divorce.

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