Members of the Abhiyan's coordination committee, while addressing mediapersons here today, said they would hold a `jan panchayat' at Raj Ghat tomorrow to draw the attention of the Supreme Court and the Bihar government to the denial of democratic rights to the people of the state.

Speaking on its behalf, Justice (retired) V M Tarkunde said that the elections to the panchayati raj institutions were last held in Bihar in 1978.

``Even after the passage of the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Bill in 1993, which gave more teeth to the panchayats, no elections have been held in the state. In fact, Bihar is the only state in the country where elections to the local bodies have not been held even after this Act came into force,'' he said.

According to him, despite enacting the new Bihar Panchayati Raj Act in 1993in the light of the Act passed by the Centre, the state government initiated the poll process very late and later found one excuse after another to postpone the process.

The state government first sought refuge by saying that there had to be fresh delimitation of the panchayats. It referred the matter to the state election commission, and then raised the issue of reservation for Other Backward Castes, which finally stalled the entire process.

The state government, Tarkunde said, passed a law reserving certain seats for the OBCs for various posts in the panchayati raj institutions over and above the seats earmarked for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. ``As a result, the total seats reserved for these three categories went up to about 75 per cent. This was struck down by the Patna High Court on March 18, 1996, on the ground that the reservation quota could not exceed 50 per cent.

In response, the state government filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court. On February 24, 1997, the apexcourt dissolved the existing panchayats for which elections were held way back in 1978. ``The Court on July 22 last referred the case to a Constitution Bench, which is yet to pronounce its ruling on the issue,'' he said.

Members of the coordination committee complained that with the dissolution of the panchayats, work of the gram panchayats was vested on gram sevaks, that of panchayat samitis on block development officers and of zila parishads on the district magistrates or deputy commissioners.

``Due to too much bureaucratisation, no developmental work is taking place at the grassroot level in the state,'' they lamented, adding, ``over nine crore people are being denied their fundamental right to self-government as guaranteed in the Constitution.''

They alleged that politicians cutting across party lines were out to scuttle the elections to the three-tier panchayati raj institutions as they feel that under the new system, these bodies had become very powerful.