Telangana & Andhra: Local poll strategies and bitter taste of mango feud

Could the Congress’s push for 42 per cent reservation for backward classes in the upcoming local body elections be a game changer in Telangana? The move, tied in with the recent caste survey, aims to fulfil the promise of jitni abadi, utna haq (rights proportionate to population), made by Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, in what has come to be known as the Kamareddy Declaration of 2023.

The Congress is hoping to not only strengthen its base among the backwards but also regain its foothold in north Telangana — a region that slipped from its grasp in the recent Lok Sabha elections. The BJP, which won eight seats in the 2023 assembly polls across north Telangana, pulled off a surprise win of eight Lok Sabha seats in 2024.

The caste survey covered over 3.54 crore people. As per its findings, backwards — including Muslim backwards — accounted for 56.33 per cent of the population. Further breaking it down, the survey found that Hindu backwards accounted for 46.25 per cent while Muslim backwards accounted for 10.08 per cent. Scheduled Castes (17.43 per cent), Scheduled Tribes (10.45 per cent) and ‘other castes’ (13.31 per cent) accounted for the rest, with Muslim other castes making up 2.48 per cent of the population.

However, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) contested this survey and claimed that the Samagra Kutumba Survey (SKS) conducted by it was closer to the truth. The SKS was never tabled in the legislative assembly when the BRS was in power.

Telangana’s minister for irrigation N. Uttam Kumar Reddy said in the assembly that the unreleased SKS had pegged the backward classes at 51 per cent and other castes at 21 per cent.

The state government dismissed any doubts on the survey undertaken by the Revanth Reddy-led Congress government. Around 94,261 enumerators were involved in the massive exercise between 9 November and 25 December 2024, and the data was autonomously analysed by the Hyderabad-based Centre for Economic Social Studies.

Responding to the current situation, a political analyst said on condition of anonymity, “The backward classes shifted their support from the Telugu Desam Party to the BJP. This was primarily because BRS president K. Chandrashekar Rao never considered them a constituency, opening the way for disillusioned BCs — mainly non-land owning artisans — to shift loyalties.”

In last year’s Lok Sabha elections, the Congress won eight seats from south Telangana to match the BJP’s eight from north Telangana. The BRS, which won 39 assembly seats in 2023, drew a blank in the parliamentary polls. According to this analyst, the Congress is set to romp home to power in the next round.

The appointment of B. Mahesh Kumar Goud, a backward caste leader from Nizamabad, as Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president is a strategic one. The recent cabinet expansion saw the inclusion of Vivek Venkataswamy, Adluri Lakshman and Adi Srinivas, all from north Telangana. They join existing ministers from the region, D. Sridhar Babu and Ponnam Prabhakar, sending a clear signal.

Congress MLC Addanki Dayakar said, “Congress was relatively stronger in south Telangana from the beginning. The 2023 election reversed this. North Telangana was a BRS stronghold but their votes got transferred to BJP. The BRS and the BJP are two sides of the same coin and work against us. Our influence in the region is increasing and our schemes are having a good impact.”

Historically, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have had the most scientifically conducted exercise of classifying BCs into A, B, C and D categories, carried out by the Anantharaman Commission appointed in 1969.

For two decades after Independence, there was no reservation for BCs in united Andhra Pradesh, says Prof. E. Venkatesu from the political science department of the University of Hyderabad. “The Kaka Kalelkar commission formed in 1953 felt caste should not be a deciding factor for backwardness and decisions on the issue should be taken at the state level. The Anantharaman Commission submitted its report in 1970 and reservations for BCs have been in place since 1972.”

The theory of relative deprivation was applied properly, making it the only classification of its kind in the country, said Venkatesu.

So far, reservations were applied to jobs and education. The current survey, conducted under Article 340 of the Constitution and under a specially constituted commission for backward classes, will be binding on the state government. As per the Supreme Court’s recommendation, it allows the state to implement reservation in the political arena. (The classification of castes at the central level was recommended by the Rohini Commission.)

Prof. Ram Shepherd Bheenaveni, vice-principal of Osmania Arts College, said reservation for Christians and Muslims should be on the basis of social status and profession rather than religion.

G. Niranjan, chairman of the commission for backward classes which undertook the Socio, Economic, Educational, Employment, Political and Caste survey said, “The Centre has to constitutionally protect the 42 per cent reservation for backward classes by retaining it in the 9th Schedule. Otherwise, reservations would extend beyond 50 per cent.” (The 9th Schedule shields laws from judicial review.)

Meanwhile, the Telangana High Court has directed the state government and the state election commission to hold local body polls by 30 September. The state counsel said the government needs a couple of months to complete the ongoing exercise of fixing reservations.

With the BRS weakened and the BJP on the rise, the Congress’s attempt to consolidate backward classes’ votes via meaningful representation could be a political masterstroke, depending on how it navigates administrative, legal and electoral hurdles in the months ahead.

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A mango crisis in south India

Mango farmers in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district — one of India’s largest mango processing hubs — are a worried lot. Roadside piles of overripe Totapuri mangoes are a common sight — all due to the Rs 1,500 crore mango pulp industry refusing to procure the fruit, citing approximately 1.5 lakh tonnes of leftover stocks from 2023 and 2024.

According to K. Govardhan Bobby, secretary, Chittoor District Fruit Processors Federation, “Disruption of trade routes through the Red Sea and increased costs of alternative routes led to this crisis.” Manufacturers of packaged juice have halved the amount of mango pulp use — from 18 to 9 per cent — which has aggravated the situation.

Totapuri mangoes are grown over 2,12,000 lakh acres in Chittoor. This year, the early heat wave in February adversely affected the crops. “The trees should flower in December. This was disturbed, as the ideal difference in day–night temperatures (15–18 degree Celsius) didn’t happen. Early heat also caused flower drops, reducing the fruit set,” said Prof. D. Sreenivasulu Reddy of Tirupati’s YSR Horticulture University.

The Andhra Pradesh government came up with a price support scheme under which the mango pulp companies would pay Rs 8 per kg while the state government would pay Rs 4 per kg. On 7 June, state borders were closed to Totapuri mangoes from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

In response, on 10 June, Karnataka chief secretary Shalini Rajneesh wrote to her Andhra Pradesh counterpart K. Vijayanand, pointing out the significant distress this has caused mango farmers in Karnataka who rely heavily on the Chittoor-based processing units. This, she said, undermines the spirit of cooperative federalism and risks triggering retaliatory sentiments.

While the season in Ramnagara, Channapatna, Dharwad, Davanagere and Bagalkot — the main mango belt in Karnataka — is over, Kolar and Chikkaballapur district are left with 2.5 lakh tonnes of standing crops (a quarter of the estimated 10 lakh tonnes grown in the state). The Central government has intervened and promised to compensate the farmers of Karnataka, but is yet to respond to appeals for similar intervention by Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin and AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami.

Unless resolved swiftly, the Totapuri mango crisis could leave a bitter aftertaste — not just in Andhra Pradesh, but across south India.