In a last-minute rejig, Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) chose Gadwal Vijayalakshmi as the mayor of Hyderabad on February 11, and named frontrunner Mothe Srilatha Reddy as her deputy. Though the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) was reneging on its promise that a woman from the influential Reddy community would be the new mayor, the party’s sub-par performance in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) polls is believed to have forced KCR’s hand. Vijayalakshmi’s appointment, the TRS hopes, will placate the irate backward classes, whose patience with the party seems to be wearing thin.
The GHMC urban agglomerat ion accounts for about a third of Telan gana’s population and so it was imperative for KCR to signal to the backwards (who make up about 52 per cent of the state’s population) that their interests were still safe in his hands. The backwards cohort was in the forefront of the separate statehood campaign that KCR ran, and feel slighted that the TRS, which has been in power for seven years, has not yet ensured commensurate reservation in education/ jobs for them (they currently have 29 per cent reservation in the state).
In 2018, the high court of Telangana, on a petition filed by OBC leader and All India Congress Committee spokesperson Sravan Dasoju, asked the state to enumerate and conduct a socioeconomic study of the backward classes in the state. This was needed to categorise the communities (a longpending demand of the Most Backward Classes) and to raise reservation quotas according to their population. But the state is yet to act on it.
This story is from the March 08, 2021 edition of India Today.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the March 08, 2021 edition of India Today.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Who Will Win The Mahayuddh?
In Maharashtra's Most Complex Political War Ever, Shifting Alliances Fuel A Gripping Saga Of Power Struggles And Betrayals In The Pursuit Of Votes
Grand Young Master
Seventeen-yearold D. Gukesh has become the youngest player to win the Candidates chess tournament
SPORTING SPIRIT
BADMINTON PLAYER ASHWINI PONNAPPA, 34, IS OFF TO HER THIRD OLYMPICS, THIS TIME WITH A NEW PARTNER, TANISHA CRASTO
PORTRAITS OF A PEOPLE
Etchings by the colonial Flemish artist F. Baltazard Solvyns are getting a new lease of life in an exhibition at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai
Centennial Man
A seminal exhibition of K.G. Subramanyan's works in his birth centenary year at Emami Art, Kolkata takes an imaginative and immersive curatorial approach
Rhythms of Nature
ARTIST AND MUSIC COMPOSER GINGGER SHANKAR'S LATEST SINGLE COMBINES SOUTH INDIAN MUSIC WITH INUIT THROAT SINGING
SEARCHING FOR THE SOUND
Kashmiri musician Faheem Abdullah’s debut album Lost; Found is a collaborative effort
FOUND IN TRANSLATION
With its excellent translations, Songs of Tagore makes Rabindrasangit accessible to the non-Bengali reader
Of Freedom and Friendship
T.C.A. RAGHAVAN'S CIRCLES OF FREEDOM FOLLOWS THREE YOUNG MUSLIMS DRAWN INTO THE FREEDOM STRUGGLE
The Razor's Edge
Salman Rushdie's Knife is an eloquent, first-person account of the horrific attack on him. It's also a love story