Injustice to BCs in panchayat reservations: Kala Venkat Rao

Srikakulam: Former minister for Home and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Kala Venkat Rao deplored that gross injustice is done to the Backward Classes in the reservations for Panchayats, as they have been allotted with district as a unit. Addressing a press conference at the TDP office here on Sunday, the TDP leader said that in the allocation of reservations for panchayats recently, the State has been taken as a unit for SCs and STs, but for BCs the district has been taken as a unit. Because of this the number of sarpanch posts allocated for BCs will be much less than the average 415. While the court had decided to hold elections in 2010, only due to fear of defeat they could not hold them, he said. Revenue worth Rs 3,500 crore that was supposed to have reached the panchayats was not released in the last three years, he observed. Without representatives, the gram panchayats are in a state of chaos, he said. Local elections were held in Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Delhi. But in AP the government is busy functioning from 'jail' or 'on bail', he ridiculed. The Chief Minister is busy protecting his ministers from going to jail and has no time for the people, he criticised. Such huge scale scams had never occurred since Independence and such an ineffective government was not seen in the last 30 years, he pointed out. If the reservations for BCs in panchayats were less than 34 per cent the party would retaliate violently, he warned. Another former minister and TDP leader Gunda Suryanarayana said that Congress, who claimed that Rajiv Gandhi brought about special powers to the local bodies through revolutionary reforms, was watering down his ideals.