The exercise to elect a gram pradhan and 15 members for the Malasa panchayat in Kanpur Dehat has again turned futile as like previous six occasions, no one came forward to even file the nomination papers before the deadline ended on Tuesday.

Since August 2005, when the post of gram pradhan was reserved for SCs, the Thakur-dominated Malasa village has been without a panchayat. By-elections were scheduled six times but were never held in want of candidates as the non-Dalits, who constitute an overwhelming majority in the area, have been boycotting the election process protesting against the reservation of the post. The Dalits, on the other hand, stay away because they reportedly do not want to annoy the non-Dalits.

On Monday, most of the Dalits left the village and are yet to return. The block development office, where nominations are filed, wore a deserted look.

Bhognipur SDM Ramdutt Ram confirmed that not only for the post of gram pradhan, even for the panchayat members not a single nomination paper was filed. This was the seventh occasion in succession when Malasa had failed to elect a gram pradhan since the seat was reserved, he added.

In the absence of any nomination, there will be no election on June 24 and the BDO will keep discharging functions of the panchayat.

Over the last few days, a team of district officials, led by the SDM and Block Development Officer Gajendra Singh had held several meetings with villagers convincing them to contest the elections.

Ramdas, a Dalit, denied any pressure of the Thakurs and said, “Most of the Dalits here are illiterate and cannot undertake the functions of a gram pradhan, therefore we do not contest elections.”

Malasa has nearly 3,000 voters with only 150-odd Dalits and Thakurs and Brahmins being the two largest communities. For the June 2008 by-election, a Dalit Chandrika Prasad had filed his nomination but withdrew his paper later, reportedly fearing the backlash of non-Dalits. Another Dalit Lallai failed to find a person to propose his candidature.

Nathi Singh, a Thakur leader of the village, said the community never prevented the Dalits from filing the nominations. “They do not want to contest,” he said.