Warangal: A dispute has erupted over sarpanch seat reservations in Sangem mandal, Warangal district, after the latest allocation created highly unusual situations in two villages.
In Ashalapalli village, the sarpanch post has been reserved for a Scheduled Caste (SC) woman. However, there is only one eligible SC woman voter in the entire village. The only SC voters belong to the family of Kongara Mallamma and her late husband Venkataiah, who moved to Ashalapalli for work 10 years ago. Following Venkataiah’s accidental death three months ago, Mallamma remains the sole registered SC voter in the village.
As the seat is reserved for an SC woman, Mallamma is now set to be elected sarpanch unopposed. Leaders of various political parties who had aspired to contest and win the seat expressed disappointment, while locals called it a “jackpot” for Mallamma.
Meanwhile, concerned political leaders, including former sarpanch D. Kishore Yadav and Congress mandal president Madhav Reddy, submitted a representation to district panchayat officer M. Ram Reddy demanding that the reservation be changed.
They alleged that the allocation was based on the 2011 Census, which wrongly recorded a high SC population in Ashalapalli, even though virtually no SC families actually live there. However, villagers point out that once a reservation is officially declared, it cannot easily be changed, making Mallamma’s election almost certain.
In a separate but similar issue, the sarpanch seat for Vanjarapalli village has been reserved for a Scheduled Tribe (ST) general candidate, despite the fact that not a single ST voter is registered in the village.
This situation arose because the nearby Rekyanaik Thanda, which had an ST population, was separated from Vanjarapalli and merged into the new Pochamma Thanda panchayat in 2018. Currently, Vanjarapalli has 520 families and 374 voters, but no ST voters. Since the 2011 Census was used to determine reservations, the seat was wrongly allocated to the ST category.
The new allocation has sparked debate among villagers over whether officials will keep the sarpanch post vacant without conducting elections or change the reservation, given that there are no ST voters. Some allege it is the fault of officials who relied entirely on outdated census data and failed to check the ground reality.
