Warangal Village Protests ST Quota Error, No Nominations Filed

Warangal: A peculiar situation has emerged in Vanjarapalli village of Sangem mandal, Warangal district, over the ongoing local body elections. Despite the village having no Scheduled Tribe (ST) population, authorities reserved the sarpanch post and three ward member seats for the ST category, triggering widespread debate across the district.

The controversy took an unusual turn when the nomination deadline passed without a single candidate filing for the sarpanch post or the three reserved ward seats. According to the 2011 Census, Vanjarapalli has 530 residents and 373 voters, but not a single person belongs to the ST community. The seats reserved for STs include the sarpanch (ST-General) post and Ward Nos. 1, 4 and 6 out of the eight wards in the village.

Villagers had earlier raised objections with officials, including the MDPO, district collector and panchayat raj commissioner, arguing that reservations must reflect the current demographic reality, and the village has no ST population. Their appeals were ignored. After the election notification was issued, the villagers approached the High Court seeking a stay. The judge referred the matter to a Division Bench for further examination, keeping the case pending.

Residents allege that the issue stems from administrative decisions taken during the BRS government’s tenure. Before 2011, Vanjarapalli, which had no ST residents, and Rekyanaik Thanda were combined as a single gram panchayat. In 2019, Rekyanaik Thanda was separated and merged with Pochamma Thanda. However, officials appear to have continued using outdated combined population data, resulting in ST reservation being wrongly applied to Vanjarapalli. The same error occurred in 2019, when three ward seats were reserved for STs, but elections were not held due to lack of nominations.

Somidi Srinivas, a villager, accused the authorities of negligence. He said the village comprises only BC and SC communities, yet the sarpanch post and three wards were reserved for STs. Despite repeatedly flagging the issue with authorities, their pleas were ignored, forcing them to file a petition in the High Court and demand that the Vanjarapalli elections be halted immediately.