BC reservations, both Congress and BJP caught on a slippery ground

Telangana’s 42% BC reservation row has left both Congress and BJP politically vulnerable. Congress faces delays due to presidential assent and Supreme Court scrutiny, while BJP’s criticism failed to resonate, highlighting uncertainty ahead of local body elections.

HYDERABAD: The national parties – Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are caught on a slippery ground over 42 percent reservations to BCs in the local body elections and employment and education sectors in the State.

Ahead of the local body elections, both the parties had drawn up grand plans to win the confidence of BCs. Much to their dismay, all the plans went awry, triggering unrest among the BCs and exposing their “commitment”.

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The Congress on its front has been reiterating its commitment towards the community by stressing that two bills were passed in the Assembly and council on March 17 and 18 this year. The same were sent to the President of India’s assent.

However, as there was no approval from the President’s Office, the Congress government issued an ordinance but even that was not approved. Finally, the Panchayat Raj Act 2018 and Municipalities Act, 2019 were also amended.

But all these efforts did not fructify. Though the Congress government was well aware of all these challenges, it has been stressing that 42 reservations would be extended to the BCs. It had even planned to hold a public meeting in Kamareddy on September 15 but postponed it citing rains.

Eventually Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Friday said the State government would wait till the Supreme Court’s orders over the issue. The entire episode reflected the Congress government’s “commitment”. Amidst all these developments, it is unclear if the State government would conduct the local body elections before September 30 – the deadline set by the High Court.

On the other hand, the State BJP has been facing challenging times and is defenseless over the BC reservations issue. The party has been trying to blame the Congress government, charging that in the guise of extending 42 percent to BC reservations, it was actually facilitating more reservations to the backward Muslims. But this campaign did not strike a chord with the people as expected by the party.

It is learnt that the Telangana BJP leaders had raised the issue with the central leadership in New Delhi during the Vice Presidential elections. However, as there was no clear indication from the party central leadership, the State leaders were left disappointed.