Vijayawada: The AP Assembly sat late into the night on Thursday to pass a Bill to carve out five per cent quota for Kapus from the 10 per cent reservation for the upper caste poor that was given by the Centre recently.
BC welfare minister K. Atchennaidu moved the AP Economically Weaker Sections (Reservation for Kapus) Bill-2019 which was later passed by the Assembly. The House sat till 9 pm.
Mr Atchennaidu said it was a festive day for the Kapus as the Telugu Desam government had fulfilled the promise of reservations for the community.
He said the community had reservations in Madras State but it was removed after the merger of Andhra with Hyderabad State to form Andhra Pradesh. He said the quota was the right of the community but the previous Congress governments never tried to fulfil the demand.
The minister said that Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, during his padayatra in the run-up to the 2014 elections, had learnt about the conditions of the Kapu community and had promised them reservations in the BC quota.
After coming to power, the TD government had passed a resolution in the AP Assembly seeking BC reservations for Kapus and sent it to the Union government. The TD government appointed the BC Commission to study the socioeconomic conditions of Kapus. The government was providing reservations to the community based on the report.
