Will the TDP government fulfill their poll promises?

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has decided to fulfill its promises made to its state’s citizen. Here are the details of the report. 

The Andhra Pradesh Assembly on Saturday unanimously passed a bill to give 5% reservation to the Kapu community in government jobs and educational institutions, breaching the Supreme Court-mandated 50% limit on minority quotas.

The Chandrababu Naidu government moved the bill — one of the TDP’s key election promises in 2014 — after the Cabinet discussed a report by the Justice (retd) Manjunatha Commission, which was constituted to study reservations for Kapus.

The bill extends 5% quota to Kapus under the Backward Castes (BC) ‘F’ Category. The state already has 29% reservation for Backward Castes under A, B, C, D and E categories. Apart from this, 15% and 6% reservations exist for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), respectively.

With the quota for Kapus, the total reservation in the state goes up to 55%, beyond the 50% cap set by the Supreme Court for reservations.

The bill will now be sent to the Centre. “As 5% reservation to Kapus makes total reservation exceed 50%, the central government nod is compulsory. We will send this bill to the Centre. We ask them to include this reservation in Schedule 9, so it becomes legitimate,” Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu said in the Assembly.

“We are fulfilling our election promises. To provide reservations for Kapu community, we formed a Commission in 2016 under Justice Manjunath. During my Padayatra, I closely watched Kapu community’s difficulties and announced reservations for the community. Through Kapu Corporation, the government is taking up welfare activities for the community in a big way with a budget of Rs 1,000 crore every year,” he said.

“The existing Backward Castes won’t be affected by the decision. Our aim is to eradicate poverty, financial and social inequalities and create a happy society.”

The powerful Kapu community, with 27% population in AP, has been demanding reservations for decades. Before the 2014 elections, Chandrababu Naidu promised to give quota to the community if elected to power. However, it was only in February 2016 that Naidu set up the Manjunatha Commission to recommend quota for Kapus. The reservations will come into effect only if the Centre agrees and passes a resolution in the Parliament because, with the Kapu reservations, the total reservations in Andhra Pradesh exceed the 50% limit set by the Supreme Court.

In Andhra Pradesh, BCs (A, B, C, D categories) have 25% reservation. There is a 4% reservation for BC (E) which is for backward Muslim communities. SCs have 15%, and STs have 6% quota, totaling 50% reservations. With the inclusion of Kapus in the list, the quota goes up to 55%. Kapus are widely believed to have supported the TDP in the 2014 elections which help it to win with a slender margin of 2.06% vote. After coming to power as the Naidu dithered over the quota promise, Kapu leader Mudragadda Padmanabham called for a protest on January 31 last year near Tuni in East Godavari district which turned violent and protestors torched the Ratnanchal Express and ransacked Tuni railway station. Since then Kapu leaders have been putting pressure on the TDP Government to fulfill its poll promise.