BC Commission points out mistakes in GOMs 46, wants panchayat elections to be deferred

The Backward Classes Commission has identified factual mistakes in GOMs 46 related to Gram Panchayat reservations and urged the Telangana government to defer elections. The commission also highlighted a decrease in BC reservation from 22.78% to 21.39%, despite population growth.

Hyderabad: After objecting to the decrease in reservations for BCs in the forthcoming Gram Panchayat elections, the Backward Classes Commission has now pointed out mistakes in GOMs 46 and asked the State government to defer the elections.

“The GO Ms 46 issued on November 22 is containing factual mistakes and is misleading. The point number 5 in the GO mentions that the Dedicated Commission has submitted its report recommending the number of ward members and sarpanches to be reserved to Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes, which is totally false and misleading,” BC Commission Chairman G Niranjan said.

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The Dedicated Commission was appointed through GO Ms 49 issued on November 4, 2024, following High Court orders. It was constituted to conduct an empirical enquiry into the nature and implications of backwardness in local bodies across the State, and to specify the proportion of reservations to be provisioned local body wise.

This, the Commission noted, clearly shows that the scope of the Dedicated Commission was limited to specifying BC reservations. It must therefore be clarified whether the Commission recommended reservations for all SC, ST and BC seats, bypassing its mandate, or if not, who was responsible for the inclusion of such claims in the GO, Niranjan said, adding “if not, who is responsible for this”.

Niranjan demanded that GO Ms 46 be withdrawn if it indeed contained mistakes and misleading facts. He said the entire reservation process must be re-examined to ensure justice for BCs.

Last week, the BC Commission had objected to the reduction in BC reservations for the Gram Panchayat elections and urged the government to put the elections on hold.

It also insisted that a high-level committee be formed to correct errors in the reservation finalisation before conducting the polls.

The Commission pointed out that in the 2019 Panchayat elections, BCs were allotted 22.78 percent reservations, which have now been brought down to 21.39 percent, a decrease of 1.39 percentage points.

It observed that despite the recent household survey recording the BC population at 56.33 percent, the reservation percentage had been reduced compared to the previous elections, which the Commission Members termed surprising.