The village and ward volunteers’ system, introduced by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in 2019 in Andhra Pradesh to bridge the gap between the government and citizens, has become deeply politicised, with the Opposition accusing the ruling YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) of using the volunteers as its foot soldiers.
At its core, the system aimed to decentralise governance by appointing local residents as volunteers to oversee implementation of government welfare programmes. Each volunteer is assigned to 50 households and is responsible for ensuring the transparent delivery of services such as social security pensions and essential commodities. For their work, volunteers are paid a monthly sum of ₹5,000 each as honorarium. There are 2,62,483 volunteers, as per government data.
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Essentially, the volunteer system aims to bring governance to the people’s doorstep. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the volunteers became the backbone of Andhra Pradesh’s response efforts. They distributed masks, facilitated the transportation of patients to healthcare facilities, and conducted household surveys to monitor the health status of every family. Their tireless efforts earned them praise from various sections of society and showed the potential of community-driven governance in times of crisis.
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But as elections loomed on the horizon, allegations of misuse and manipulation began to surface. The Opposition accused the YSRCP of exploiting the volunteer network to sway voters in its favour. It raised concerns about the lack of impartiality, claiming that the volunteers had turned into assets for the ruling party for its electoral campaign. This claim was substantiated by the fact that more than 60,000 volunteers resigned from their posts and officially began working with the YSRCP to help it during its campaign. It was clear that the party hoped to use the volunteers’ familiarity with the people at the grassroots to its advantage.
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Following complaints by Opposition parties in various districts, District Election Officers suspended a number of volunteers. Later, based on a writ petition filed by Dr. Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar, Secretary, Citizens for Democracy (CFD) of Andhra Pradesh, the Andhra Pradesh High Court barred volunteers from participating in the distribution of welfare schemes after the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) was put in place. Mr. Ramesh Kumar is a retired Indian Administrative Service officer who served as State Election Commissioner. The court ruling was met with both praise and criticism: while some lauded it as a necessary safeguard against electoral malpractice, others claimed that it created obstacles in the delivery of services.
Based on the court orders, the Election Commission of India (ECI) instructed the State government to bar volunteers from delivering government services for as long as the MCC was in place. Following this, Chief Secretary K.S. Jawahar Reddy instructed the village and ward secretariat staff to disburse the money and asked pensioners to collect it from the respective offices. However, later, as per the directions of the ECI, the State government said it would disburse pensions through Direct Beneficiary Transfer to up to 75% of the pensioners. The rest would receive it at their doorstep during May and June, it said.
While the plan seemed to work on paper, in reality it turned into a tragedy. Some of the pensioners died, allegedly because they stood in the heat for hours to collect their due. This expectedly led to a controversy. Mr. Jagan Reddy and other YSRCP leaders blamed the CFD and the National Democratic Alliance for the deaths, while Telugu Desam Party national president N. Chandrababu Naidu and other Opposition leaders faulted the State government, claiming that it wilfully avoided employing village and ward secretariat staff to disburse pensions at beneficiaries’ homes.
Based on multiple complaints that volunteers are influencing voters at the grassroots level, the Andhra Pradesh High Court asked the ECI to take action. The ECI has barred the volunteers from distributing cash benefits under any scheme, including pensions. The YSRCP continues to staunchly defend the volunteer system and claims that it is being politicised. This entire episode could have been avoided if the volunteers were merely allowed to do their duty and were not appropriated by the YSRCP for its own political gain.
