Mislaid Reservations Spark Outcry in Telangana

Hyderabad: As Telangana prepares for its local body elections, serious discrepancies have surfaced in the reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Backward Classes (BC), triggering widespread concern over the accuracy and fairness of the Election Commission’s process.

Several districts have reported that seats earmarked for SC or ST candidates have been allotted in areas with little or no population from those communities. The confusion stems largely from the use of outdated 2011 Census data, which fails to capture subsequent demographic changes.

In Warangal district’s Sangem mandal, Ashalapalli village presents a striking case. The sarpanch post has been reserved for an SC woman, yet there is only one eligible voter — Kongara Mallamma — belonging to that category. Mallamma and her husband, K. Venkataiah, had moved out of the village a decade ago. Following her husband’s death, she returned recently and is now the sole SC woman eligible to contest, effectively making her election uncontested.

Local leaders, including former sarpanch D. Kishore Yadav and Congress mandal president Madhav Reddy, have submitted a representation to district panchayat officer M. Ram Reddy seeking a revision of the reservation. They alleged that the 2011 Census data incorrectly recorded a higher SC population, though hardly any SC families actually live in Ashalapalli. Villagers note that once a reservation is formally notified, it cannot be easily changed.

A similar situation exists in Vanjarapalli, where the sarpanch post was reserved for an ST candidate despite the absence of any registered ST voter. The error arose because the nearby Rekyanaik Thanda, which had an ST population, was separated from Vanjarapalli and merged into the newly formed Pochamma Thanda panchayat in 2018. Vanjarapalli now has 520 families and 374 voters, but none belonging to the ST community.

Nalgonda district reflects a broader pattern of misplaced reservations. Of 33 ZPTC and mandal parishad president posts, 355 MPTC, 869 sarpanch and over 7,400 ward member seats, several have been reserved for STs in areas where ST voters are few or non-existent. This includes seven gram panchayats in Damaracherla mandal, where Ambagapuram and Indugula have both their sarpanch posts and multiple wards earmarked for STs despite having only a handful of voters from the community.

Conversely, several areas with significant SC populations have been left without proportional representation. Similar mismatches have been recorded in BC reservations, where small hamlets with only a few BC families have been allotted key posts, paving the way for unanimous elections due to the absence of eligible candidates.

In Mahabubabad district, Maloth Ramesh Naik of Balapala Lingya Thanda in Kuravi mandal said, “We raised our voice through the ‘Our Rule in Our Thanda’ campaign to elect our representatives, but the sarpanch post here was reserved for BCs even though there is not a single BC person among the 1,236 voters.” He said a representation was submitted to the district collector seeking to rectify the error.

The recurring errors have raised questions about the reliability of the 2011 Census-based reservation framework and the urgency of updating demographic data before the local polls.

Neeraj Kumar with inputs from P. Srinivas (Nalgonda), Puli Sharath Kumar (Warangal) and Pillalamarri Srinivas (Adilabad)