Give 50% quota to BCs in local body polls: Backward Classes Welfare Association

Musheerabad: R Krishnaiah, national president of Backward Classes Welfare Association (BCWA), wrote a letter to Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on Wednesday urging him to field 50 per cent of candidates from the BC community in the ensuing ZPTC and MPTC elections from TRS party.

Addressing the media, Krishnaiah said that both the Congress and the BJP had agreed to field 50 per cent of their candidates from BC communities based on the ratio of population, but it was only the TRS that had not clarified on its stand. He said he wrote a letter to KCR in this regard to know about the party stand on BC reservations.

He criticised the TRS government for reducing BC reservation in the elections from 34 per cent to 22 per cent citing a Supreme Court ruling. Injustice was meted out BCs in this regard. A deliberate attempt was being made to suppress the BCs politically, he added.

The BC Welfare Association has been striving to increase the political representation of the backward classes and has waged several movements and agitations to bring the BC reservations to 34 per cent, but the State government has reduced it to 22 per cent, Krishnaiah alleged.

He accused the State government of losing the case in the Supreme Court as the government lawyers failed to present the case effectively. Citing the recent hike in reservations for EBCs, he said that there were alternative legal options to increase BC reservations but the TRS government did not utilize them properly.