The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Monday raised the issue of reservation for the Kapu community in Andhra Pradesh.
Raising the issue during zero hour, TDP MP M. Srinivasa Rao said that while the TDP-led State government had passed a Bill providing 5% reservation for the Kapus in education and employment, it has been pending with the Centre for long. He asked that the Bill be expedited.
The intervention lasted barely a couple of minutes but is a pointer to the direction that politics in the State is developing.
Apart from the demand for Special Category Status and financial devolution attendant to the carving out of the State, the vote of the Kapu community is emerging as an important pivot of State politics. The community comprises 27% of the voters in the State, and is concentrated in East and West Godavari, Krishna and Guntur districts.
In 2014, the TDP fielded 29 Kapu candidates for the Assembly poll (out of 175). It gave ticket to four from the community for the Lok Sabha election (out of 25).
Senior sources in the BJP said the TDP’s advocacy of quota for Kapus was linked to film star and Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan’s growing prominence in State politics and the BJP’s own moves in that direction.
“He (Pawan Kalyan is popular among Kapu youth and is gaining traction across the State. The TDP has been largely identified with the Kamma community, with the Kapu community swinging between it and the Congress for want of options. Now, Pawan Kalyan is emerging as a viable Kapu leader, and the BJP too has appointed a new State president, Kanna Lakshminarayana, a multiple-term legislator and hailing from the Kapu community,” said the source. The Left parties too have been gravitating towards Pawan Kalyan and the CPI and CPI(M) have both been working in tandem with the former.