The landmark decision taken by the Narendra Modi cabinet on Monday night to provide 33 percent reservations to women in the total number of seats in Parliament and state assemblies is expected to upset the calculations of the major political parties in the Telugu states, which are going to assembly elections soon.
The biggest trouble will be for the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana led by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who has already declared candidates for 115 out of 119 assembly seats in the state, going to polls in another three months.
Though BRS legislator and KCR’s daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha has been raising the pitch for the women’s quota, the party is definitely in an embarrassing situation when it comes to its implementation.
If the bill is passed in Parliament, which is most likely to happen, the state assemblies have to pass the same by conducting special sessions, so that it would come into implementation from the next elections.
So, the Telangana assembly, too, has to convene the assembly to pass the decision. This will upset the calculations of KCR, who has already announced the candidates to fight the coming elections.
He has to make drastic changes in the list of candidates and field only women in those constituencies which would be reserved for women.
At present, he has picked up only four women candidates; now, he has to field women candidates in at least 39 seats. This might affect the winning prospects of the party.
Since the other two parties – the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party haven’t selected the candidates, they would go cautiously in the selection of their respective party candidates, taking women’s quota into consideration.
In Andhra Pradesh, too, it will be a tough situation for both YSR Congress party president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu, if the women’s bill comes into implementation. They have to pick up women’s candidates for at least 58 seats.
Both of they have more or less identified their party candidates and now, they have to rework on the selections, if the women’s bill comes into implementation. It would be a challenging task for them to select the right candidates.