Primary teachers root for voting rights in MLC polls

Hyderabad: The primary school teachers, who make up for nearly 50 per cent of the total teaching community in State, are up in arms against the government for lacking voting rights in electing Members to Legislative Council from Teachers’ constituencies. For over 60 decades, the primary school teachers have been denied the right, and this has been raising concerns among the community as they opine that the issues being faced by the Primary Education Sector (PSE) were not represented properly in the Legislature.

Speaking to The Hans India, Telangana Progressive Teachers Federation (TPTF) vice-president M Ravinder said the main intention was to build a movement to bring changes in the archaic provisions in the Peoples Representation Act.
“It is a case that is overlooked by the successive governments. The current government at the Centre which has been credited itself revoking the archaic laws and even weeding out certain obsolete laws which are as old as 100 years must take a forward step and make amendments to the Act,” he said, adding that it was in similar conditions that the existing provision has been continuing and only teachers from the high school level were given voting rights to elect teachers MLCs.

Further, the situation has also been leading to electoral malpractices as several private and aided high school teachers were transformed into vote banks. Some even offered sops like hike in salaries, special allowances to keep their colt on the teachers vote banks intact, and getting elected from teachers constituencies. But, the primary teachers with graduate qualifications were denied the right to vote, he added.

Clarifying this, Captain Ganesh Karnik, an MLC from Karnataka South-West Teachers Constituency said, “There is no problem in giving voting rights to primary teachers as most of them are graduates like their counterparts in the high schools.” Though twice such amendments were brought to change the same had been rejected, he added.

P Sudhakar Reddy, TRS MLC from Karimnagar, Medak, Nizamabad and Adilabad Teachers Constituency said, when the Act was made in 1950, qualification for the primary school teachers was VII standard to SSLC and not the graduation. As per Section 27(3) (b) in The Representation of the People Act, 1950, graduate teachers working in the “educational institutions within the State not lower in standard than that of a secondary school alone are eligible to vote in the teachers’ constituencies”. 

“Also, there were only seven States where this problem was noticed. But, to bring an amendment to the said provision, it requires the approval of legislatures of all States. But, since it was not an important issue for other States, even the successive governments at the Centre did not take any interest in the issue,” he opined.