Congress push for urbanisation led to reduced BC reservation, say BC leaders
BC leaders in Khammam and Kothagudem have criticised the Congress government for failing to ensure the promised 23 percent reservation for backward classes in gram panchayats. They argue that the push for creating new urban local bodies has reduced BC representation, with some mandals having no reserved sarpanch seats despite high BC populations.
Khammam: Amidst the outcry over the Congress government failing to ensure even the existing 23 percent reservation for backward classes in gram panchayats, another fact is emerging.
A look at the reasons why some districts have dismally low number of gram panchayats allocated to BCs, like Kothagudem where not even one of over 470 gram panchayats was given, has revealed that this was because of the Congress government’s earlier push for urbanisation by creating new urban local bodies.
According to BC leaders, the Congress, soon after coming to power, had gone for a major push for new urban local bodies in erstwhile Khammam, and this has now resulted in the loss of sarpanch seats for the backward classes.
The Congress, in December 2024, had created the Yedulapuram Municipality combining 12 gram panchayats, namely Yedulapuram, Barugudem, Gollagudem, Maddulapalli, Muthagudem, Polepalli, Teldarupalli, Gudimalla, Chinna Venkatagiri, Gurralapadu, Maddulapalli, Peddathanda of Khammam rural mandal in Palair Assembly constituency in the district.
According to Stambhadri Urban Development Authority’s (SUDA) former chairman Bachu Vijay Kumar, in a majority of these panchayats, the BC population was high. Of the estimated 51,000 population in Khammam rural mandal, over 25,000 people were BCs, he said.
Interestingly, gram panchayats like Pedda Thanda, Gurralapadu, Chinna Venkatagiri, Yedulapuram and Gudimalla, which were part of Khammam Municipal Corporation, were demerged following the request of the villagers who wanted to maintain rural status. However, the Congress government made them again part of the urban local body, Vijay Kumar told Telangana Today.
Similarly in Kothagudem, seven gram panchayats in Sujatha Nagar mandal were merged into the newly created Kothagudem Municipal Corporation while Aswaraopet Municipality was created with three major gram panchayats earlier this year.
In both areas, the BC population was said to be high. Kothagudem former municipal chairperson Kapu Seethalakshmi demanded the government to do justice to BCs in the urban local body elections to address the issue of under representation of BCs.
Over the issue of Congress government’s sincerity in delivering social justice to BCs by failing to allot the promised 23 percent seats to the community in gram panchayat polls, officials maintained that the reservation quota for BCs was drawn based on the population ratio.
But BC leaders opined that the government was not interested in ensuring political participation of the community. BRS senior leader Gundala Krishna noted that the government cheated the BCs by promising to implement 42 percent reservation for BCs, which was not possible without a constitutional amendment. Only 11.7 percent sarpanch seats were reserved for BCs instead of 23 percent according to the recent GO No.46. All political parties should respond to the issue and ensure that justice is done to BCs, he said.
It was sad that not a single sarpanch seat was reserved for BCs in Raghunadhapalem and Tirumalayapalem mandals, where the BC population was around 50 percent.
In the 2019 elections, four sarpanch seats were reserved for BCs in both the mandals, Krishna said.Some leaders suggested that political parties should field BC candidates in general seats as it was done in the past to ensure proper political representation of Backward Classes.
