Hyderabad: The Busani Venkateshwar Rao commission, which was constituted by the Congress govt to recommend BC quota for local bodies elections, on Monday submitted its report to the state. The govt, however, has not made the recommendations public, unlike the contents of the one-man commission on SC sub-categorisation. Sources said the govt wants to reveal the recommendations of the commission only after chief minister A Revanth Reddy discusses them with his cabinet colleagues and other leaders.
The sources said that in view of the Supreme Court guidelines and the 50% cap on reservations, the dedicated commission, which is headed by retired IAS officer Rao, reportedly recommended the reservations to the BCs. As of now, the state has been giving 23% reservations to the BCs in the local bodies elections. Congress, in the run up to the assembly polls in 2023, had promised to enhance the quota to 42%. The recent caste survey revealed that BCs comprise about 46% of the population in Telangana.
Some officials said the terms of reference (TOR) of the commission, constituted three months ago, were to conduct a contemporaneous, rigorous, empirical enquiry into the nature and implications of the backwardness and local bodies within the state in order to specify the proportion of reservation required to be provisioned local body-wise, in light of the recommendations of the commission, as contemplated under the Constitution and the law laid down by the SC in this regard.
“Since TOR of the commission said the law laid down by the SC in the quota, the commission cannot recommend quota more than 50% total reservations. If it (the commission) recommends more (than 50%) and if the govt accepts , it will lead to legal scrutiny again,” a senior official observed.
The dedicated commission recommended reservations only for rural local bodies, that is, for various posts such as sarpanch, mandal parishad territorial constituencies (MPTC) members, mandal praja parishad (MPP), zilla parishad territorial constituencies (ZPTC) members, and ZP chairpersons as of now. BC organisations and leaders want to react to the quota only after the recommendations are made public by the govt.
