Andhra Pradesh’s cabinet approved an average 28.18% reservation for Backward Classes in local-body elections, according to The Times of India’s October 11 report. The average should not be read as a single percentage applicable to every municipality, panchayat or elected office.
The cabinet accepted recommendations of the Rajiv Ranjan Mishra Commission and decided to send its report to the State Election Commission. The reported decision followed a Supreme Court setback concerning the earlier proposal for a uniform 34% BC quota.
Different offices carry different recommendations
The report gives 26.73% for gram-panchayat ward members, 27.95% for sarpanches and 25.55% for MPTCs. It lists 24.60% for MPPs and ZPTCs, 23.08% for zilla-parishad chairpersons, 32.78% for municipal ward members, 33.02% for municipal chairpersons and 35.29% for mayors.
Reserved seats and party tickets are separate
Ministers also said coalition parties would compensate through BC candidate nominations where statutory reservation fell short of 34%. A nomination commitment concerns whom a party fields; it does not amend the legal classification of a seat or guarantee that its candidate will win.
How to interpret the next notification
Readers assessing their own ward should look for the specific local body, office and category in the implementing documents. Multiplying every council’s seats by the statewide average could produce a misleading estimate. A statewide headline cannot substitute for the actual ward roster.
A useful accountability question is whether the published roster can be reconciled with the commission’s recommendation and the implementation order. Candidates and residents should retain the exact document and its date when seeking clarification, rather than relying on a circulated percentage without context.
For the preceding legal development, read our report on the court challenge.
Source: The Times of India, October 11. This article is an independently written summary and explanation, not original on-location reporting.
Correction, October 12: The earlier headline rounded the reservation figure to 28%. This report now distinguishes the reported 28.18% average from individual local-body percentages.
