The last panchayat elections were held in Delhi in 1983, a few years before Rajiv Gandhi introduced the 73rd amendment to the Constitution under which Panchayati Raj was made a law. The existing panchayats were dissolved by the Delhi lieutenant governor in 1989.

Left without any representatives to answer to, the government has been sitting on the Rs 23.7 crore it owes to the residents of these 371 villages for the Gaon Sabha land acquired for building residential colonies like Vasant Kunj, Rohini and Patparganj. The money stuck in government coffers has grounded developmental schemes in the villages, where the absence of infrastructure has led to the birth of pockets of squalor in the Capital.

Though the landless villagers have been promised land under the 20-point programme, only 30,000 plots have been distributed so far. Even for these plots, the villagers have not yet received malikana or ownership rights.

The Delhi government had made four demands in the past five years to the Centre asking it to abolish Panchayati Raj in the city's villages, which have around 50 lakh residents, despite repeated letters during the tenures of former prime ministers P.V. Narasimha Rao and I.K. Gujral.

The demands came from former chief ministers Madan Lal Khurana and Sahib Singh Verma, who himself comes from Mundka village. In the last of the four letters sent by the Delhi government to the Centre, Sahib Singh wrote: ``We had in 1993 itself sought to end Panchayati Raj and replace it with a three-tier system of governance under the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.''

He added: ``We want this because villagers are more interested in selling their land in the wake of rapid industrialisation of rural areas. So we want to finish the Delhi Panchayati Raj Act of 1954 and make necessary amendments in the Delhi Land Reform Act of 1954.'' The last letter sent to then Delhi chief secretary P.V. Jaikrishnan by N.C. Saxena, secretary, Ministry of Rural Development - which was an additional portfolio with then prime minister I.K. Gujral on March 2, 1998, states: ``The amendment is applicable to all states and union territories except those that have been specifically exempted. NCT Delhi is very much within the purview of the amendment. According to the provisions, the Delhi government should have amended the Delhi Panchayati Raj Act of 1954 within one year of the amendment coming into force. We find that this has not been done.''

The letter goes on to state that ``on the contrary, the Delhi government has sought the abolition of panchayats'', adding that this is a violation of the amendment. ``Elections may be held soon in consonance with the provisions of the amendment,'' it also states.