Errors In Caste Quotas Lead To Uncertainty In Local Body Polls In Telangana
Confusion and uncertainty prevailed over reservations for local body elections, with some sarpanch and ward member posts reserved for STs in villages that have no ST voters.
By : P. Srinivas
Update: 2025-09-29 17:47 GMT
Nalgonda: Confusion and uncertainty prevailed over reservations for local body elections, with some sarpanch and ward member posts reserved for STs in villages that have no ST voters.
In Nalgonda district, reservations were finalised for 33 SPTCs, Mandal Parishad presidents, 355 MPTCs, 869 sarpanches, and 7,404 ward members for the upcoming elections to local bodies.
According to district authorities, reservations were determined based on the roster system adopted in the 2018 local body elections, with quotas for SCs and STs fixed according to the 2011 Census. Reservations for BCs, however, were finalised using data from the 2024 caste census.
As there is a gap of more than a decade between the two sets of census data, errors occurred in finalising quotas for SCs, STs, and BCs. This has led to uncertainty in seven gram panchayats of Damaracherla mandal. Of the 11 gram panchayats there, seven do not have a single BC voter, yet their sarpanch posts were reserved for BCs. These include former tribal hamlets: Tooru Thanda, Jaithra Thanda, Sunavath Thanda, Bandavath Thanda, Gonya Thanda, Maan Thanda, and Balaji Nagar.
In Ambagapuram gram panchayat of Madugulapally mandal, the sarpanch post was reserved for STs even though the village has no ST voters. Four wards were also reserved for STs, despite SCs having a higher population and not getting a single ward reserved. Similarly, in Indugula gram panchayat, the sarpanch and four wards were reserved for STs even though the village has only two ST voters. In Gajalapuram, the sarpanch post was reserved for STs though there is only one ST voter in the entire panchayat.
In Devarakonda mandal, the sarpanch posts of Venkata Thanda and Dubba Thanda were reserved for BCs, though they have only three and two BC families respectively. In villages such as Gonya Thanda, Guntipally, and Jilakarakunta, where only one BC family resides, the sarpanch posts were reserved for BCs. Similarly, the sarpanch post of Mudimanikya gram panchayat was reserved for STs, though only one ST family lives there. In Jalubai Thanda, which has only BC voters, the sarpanch post was also reserved for BCs.
These anomalies have raised the possibility of unanimous elections in villages where only one voter or family belongs to the caste for which the sarpanch post has been reserved.