How important is literacy is for the empowerment of women through electoral reservations?
The question has once again become a topic of debate in the backward Adilabad district where the process of elections for rural local bodies is in progress. All political parties are being accused of circumventing the spirit behind the 50 per cent reservation for women by fielding the allegedly more pliant illiterate candidates from many a Mandal Parishad and Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies.
The debate began after the Congress issued the ‘B’ form to a 70-year-old illiterate aspirant from Boath ZPTC on the last day of withdrawal of nomination forms. Three other Congress aspirants staged a protest in front of the residence of the District Congress Committee president C. Ramchander Reddy.
They accused him of ignoring their educational qualifications and experience of serving as sarpanch of the mandal headquarters village in favour of an inexperienced and illiterate aspirant. One of them, Merugu Vishala Das, who is in the fray as a rebel independent, accused senior leaders of attempting proxy-rule through the move.
History speaksThe violation of the spirit behind women’s empowerment in electoral politics had come to be debated in Adilabad first in 1998, when then Zilla Parishad chairperson N. Sumathi Reddy was ousted through a non-confidence motion by leaders of her own Telugu Desam Party. Ch. Suhasini Reddy who succeeded her, was weighed down by the alleged interference by the then Union Minister of State and senior TDP leader S. Venugopalachary.
Both former chairpersons possess higher educational qualifications and could resist pressures only to some extent. Surmounting interference was not possible even for them as their male counterparts in the TDP did not support them during the time of reckoning.
The district boasts of a women’s literacy rate of 72 per cent against the State’s 86 per cent. Nevertheless, not many educated women enter politics here.
