HYDERABAD: The BRS leadership has embarked on a post-mortem of the BJP's victory in the Hyderabad-Ranga Reddy-Mahabubnagar teacher MLC election. Although the BRS did not contest the election, it backed the Progressive Recognised Teachers' Union-Telangana State (PRTU-TS) candidate Gurram Chenna Keshav Reddy.
Sources said the party leadership primarily identified GO 317, spouse transfers, lack of promotions since 2015 and no transfers since 2018 as prime reasons for the teachers not voting for the PRTU-TS candidate. To express their anger and protest on these issues they had voted for the BJP candidate, it was felt.
The BRS government brought GO 317 in December 2021 which faced stiff resistance from government teachers unions. This GO, pertaining to Telangana Public Employment, has introduced a zonal system in the allocation of jobs.
The new system was formulated after Telangana was reorganised into 33 districts from earlier 10 in 2016. The existing teachers were allocated to newly organised teachers based on their nativity.
This caused several hardships to teachers in the middle of the academic year to change their job location especially for spouse teachers, as husband was allocated to one district and wife to other district. Spouse teachers continue to protest seeking justice even today.
Besides, the government failed to give promotions to teachers since 2015 and undetake general transfer of teachers since 2018. When Teacher MLC elections neared, the BRS government initiated the transfers process in February, it hit legal hurdle with High Court issuing stay orders.
All these factors made teachers angry at BRS government which worked against it in the election.
There were 21 candidates in the fray, including 16 independents But the main contest was between PRTU-TS candidate Gurram Chenna Keshav Reddy backed by BRS, Gali Harshavardhan Reddy backed by Congress and A.Venkata Narayan Reddy backed by BJP.
But BJP's A.V.N. Reddy emerged victorious which came as a shock to the BRS and Congress as they were expecting the BJP to end up in the third place.
This is because BRS and Congress were traditionally stronger in teachers unions politics, being the ruling parties for several years. All the major teachers unions are either affiliated to the BRS, Congress or the Left parties.
