The YSR Congress Party has asked the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which announced allotment of 100 Assembly seats to BCs in the next elections, to come together for selecting these constituencies through lottery method so that election of BC candidates is guaranteed.
In an open letter to TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu, honorary president of the YSRC Y.S. Vijayamma said on Sunday that mere proposal would not ensure political empowerment of BCs but a concrete action would do.
In her three-page letter she said: “If your (Mr. Naidu’s) intention of standing for the BC cause is genuine, we shall chalk out a strategy for deciding the seats for BCs to make sure that the said communities represent 100 constituencies in the Assembly.”
Ms. Vijayamma proposed that if the TDP came along with YSRC on the issue, the 100 seats could be selected through lottery method from out of general seats, keeping aside those reserved for SCs and STs and a few for Muslim minority candidates where their population was sizeable. It would then become binding on other parties, including the Congress, to field BC candidates.
She recalled that her son and Kadapa MP Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy proposed 33 per cent quota for BCs in local bodies but the matter was pending in court. She criticised the TDP for going back on its word on fielding 100 BC candidates in the 2009 elections and said it was late YSR who had given 67 seats to BCs against only 47 by Mr. Naidu.
