As a fail-safe measure, the PAC also weighed the option of allocating 42 percent tickets to BC candidates in local body polls.
Published Aug 24, 2025 | 12:06 PM ⚊ Updated Aug 24, 2025 | 12:20 PM
Telangana Cabinet ministers at the meeting
Synopsis: The Telangana Congress over the indecision on implementing 42 percent reservations for Backward Classes in local body elections. The TPCC appointed a ministerial consultative committee to consult legal experts and suggest a way forward.
The Telangana Congress is struggling to wriggle out of the coils of indecision on implementing 42 percent reservations for Backward Classes in local body elections. Time is running out for the party as the Telangana High Court has directed that polls must be completed by the end of September 2025.
Reflecting this dilemma, the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) met at Gandhi Bhavan on Saturday, 23 August and formed a ministerial consultative committee. It has been tasked to consult legal experts and suggest a way forward.
Headed by Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, the panel includes Ministers N Uttam Kumar Reddy, D Sridhar Babu, Ponnam Prabhakar, and D Anasuya Seethakka. The committee has to submit its report by 28 August, which will be the basis for discussions in the cabinet meeting on 29 August.
The cabinet will take a final decision and convey it to the State Election Commission (SEC) on implementing BC reservations. The SEC is expected to issue the notification for local body elections in the first week of September.
The three-hour PAC session examined several options for fulfilling the promise of 42 percent BC reservations, made in the Kamareddy Declaration of 2023, ahead of Assembly elections.
The meeting was attended by Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, AICC in-charge Meenakshi Natarajan, TPCC President Mahesh Kumar Goud, Vikramarka, ministers, and senior leaders.
As a fail-safe measure, the PAC also weighed the option of allocating 42 percent tickets to BC candidates in local body polls. Leaders admitted this may be the only way to save face before BCs if the reservations cannot be built into the law.
The PAC expressed deep dissatisfaction over the Union government sitting on two Telangana Assembly bills that provide 42 percent reservations for BCs in local bodies as well as in education and employment. The party was equally unhappy with Governor Jishnu Dev Varma for not giving assent to the ordinance sent by the government. The ordinance sought to amend the Telangana Panchayat Raj Act, which caps total reservations in local bodies at 50%.
The PAC also resolved to move the Supreme Court on the two bills pending Presidential assent. The state will appoint two senior lawyers to argue its case in the apex court. Telangana will press for a clear timeline for the Presidential decision. The chief minister favoured impleading in the existing petitions already before the Supreme Court, rather than filing a new one, which he felt would be long and cumbersome.
At the meeting, the chief minister is understood to have reiterated the Congress commitment to 42 percent BC reservations, calling it a matter of social justice and welfare of disadvantaged communities.
The PAC also discussed the Jubilee Hills by-election, likely to be held along with the Bihar polls in September 2025. The party decided to bank heavily on its welfare programmes — Rythu Bharosa, loan waivers, Indiramma housing, and ration cards — to maximise support and wrest the seat from the BRS.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
