Parties Pledge 42% BC Quota, Bypass Prez Approval
The Chief Minister had recently reiterated the plan upon his return from Delhi.
Hyderabad:The government’s bill and ordinance seeking 42 per cent reservations for the Backward Classes (BC) in local body elections is hanging fire, the community could still benefit with the main political parties gearing up to indirectly provide the quota by fielding at least the same percentage of candidates.
The Congress was the first to publicly commit to the move, with Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy announcing during the Assembly Budget session in March that the party would provide 42 per cent tickets to BCs in local body elections, and challenged Opposition parties to state their position on the matter.
The Chief Minister had recently reiterated the plan upon his return from Delhi. The Congress political affairs committee (PAC) will meet at Gandhi Bhavan on August 15 to finalise the decision. The meeting will be attended Revanth Reddy, AICC Telangana in-charge Meenakshi Natarajan, Cabinet ministers, and TPCC chief B. Mahesh Kumar Goud.
On Saturday, Goud reiterated the party’s commitment to 42 per cent BC representation in ticket distribution, independent of Presidential assent to the quota bill. BC welfare minister Ponnam Prabhakar echoed this assurance.
The BJP too has pledged 42 per cent representation for BCs in local body tickets. Telangana BJP president N. Ramchander Rao said the BC community’s interests would be a priority in the party’s seat distribution plan.
He criticised the Congress for “misleading” the community by withholding caste census data and allocating 10 per cent of the BC quota to Muslims under the BC-E category, which he claimed would reduce the effective BC representation to 32 per cent, below the 34 per cent in the previous polls.
Union minister G. Kishan Reddy said this policy led to BCs losing 30 reserved seats to Muslim candidates in the last GHMC elections.
The BJP argues that with BCs forming around 56 per cent of Telangana’s population, they deserve greater political representation. The party says it will focus on ensuring BC empowerment through its own ticket allocations, without relying on Congress’s reservation policy.
The BRS has asserted that it has consistently been ahead in BC representation. Citing data from Parkal constituency, BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao in a recent party meeting, said that in the last local body elections, the party fielded 32 BC candidates out of 55 MPTC seats (58 per cent) and 49 BC candidates out of 109 sarpanch posts (45 per cent). In MPTC and MPP seats, the BRS allotted half the positions to BCs. Statewide, BC candidates accounted for around 40 per cent of the party’s local body nominees. A senior BRS said the BRS would maintain its past record and ensure BCs receive substantial representation whenever local body elections are held.