BCs need political empowerment, not sops: Sravan

Hyderabad : Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Chief Spokesperson Dr. Sravan Dasoju said that the TRS Government was doing gross injustice with Backward Classes in Telangana State in the forthcoming Pachayat Raj elections by taking up reservation of seats in a scientific manner.

Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan on Wednesday, Sravan said that TRS Government was just trying to please the BC communities by distributing sheeps, fish or other tools to make them continue their ancestral professions. However, at political level, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao has been conspiring to suppress the BCs. He said the erroneous reservation of seats for BCs was aimed at preventing their political empowerment. Instead of taking actual percentage of BC population into consideration to reserve the seats, the State Government has been banking on various estimations to deny BCs their due share in power in Panchayat Raj elections.

Sravan said there were lot of contradictions in the figures pertaining to actual population of BCs in Telangana. Estimating the BC population to be 34% in 1999, same figure was used in implementation of reservation policy. However, only 34% seats have been reserved for BCs in the new Panchayat Raj Act although the Intensive Household Survey conducted by the State Government in August 2014 has estimated the BC population to be 52%. Strangely, he said the same government has estimated the BC population as 37% while presenting the Bill to enhance quota from 4% to 12% for Muslims under BC-E. "Which number should we trust? Is it 34%, 52% or 37%?" he asked.

The Congress leader said BCs are not a single community/group. They are referred to a category comprising of 113 communities divided into A, B, C, D and E groups. Therefore, he said reservation of seats without categorisation would cause huge injustice to various small communities which never got any representation in any of the elected bodies in the State. The existing 29% reservation is sub-divided among five groups of A - 7% (Aboriginal Tribes, Vimukthijatis, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes, Orphans etc.,); B - 10% (Vocation Groups); C - 1% (SC converts into Christianity); D - 7% (Other Backward Classes) and E - 4% (Socially and educationally backward classes among Muslims).

Therefore, in a broader perspective, the categorisation of reserved seats would benefit all communities in a broader manner and increase their representation in Panchayat Raj institutions. With 34% reservation, the quota for BC-A will increase to 8.2%; BC-B to 11.7%; BC-C to 1.2%; BC-D to 8.2% and BC-E to 4.8%. He said KCR talks of enhancing Muslims quota to 12%. However, by not agreeing for categorisation, he is preventing the increase in BC-E quota from 4% to even 4.8%.

Sravan pointed out that of 113 communities in all five categories, there were several communities which never got any representation in any elected posts. Citing figures of last elections, he said of 441 ZPTC, 196 were reserved for BCs. However, as many as 88 BC communities had no representation. Similarly, of 434 MPPs, 82 communities had no representation in 206 BC reserved seats. Of 6,490 MPTCs, 3267 were reserved for BCs and no one from 49 communities got elected to the post. Likewise, of 4,147 elected from BC reserved seats out of 8,692 Sarpanches, there was no representation from 57 communities. There is not a single councillor from 66 communities (898/1453) and 90 communities among Corporators (228/408). Of 55 Municipal Chairmen, 36 were reserved for BCs. Therefore, 99 BC communities had no representative on these posts.

Just 20 out of 119 MLAs (16.8%), 12 out of 40 MLCs and only 3 out of 17 Lok Sabha MPs belong to Backward Classes although their population is estimated to be around 52%, Sravan said.

Therefore, Sravan demanded that the State Government conduct door-to-door enumeration of BC population and implement categorisation in BC reserved seats in Panchayat Raj elections.