ELURU: The caste fissures in the Andhra Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have come to the fore with its spokesperson Paka Satyanarayana claiming that the inclusion of Kapus in the BC list will affect the reservation of the backward classes. He said reservation to Kapus is ‘against Constitution.’
This is in contrast to party senior leader Somu Veerraju’s open support to Mudragada Padmanabham’s agitation for reservations. Paka Satyanarayana is from the backward class.
Paka Satyanarayana, who addressed a media conference here Friday termed the AP government’s assurance that Kapus would be included in the BC category was a hasty one. He said the Kapus were not socially backward and that only those communities which were socially, economically, educationally and politically backward should be included in the BC category. On Tuni violence, he blamed both Mudragada Padmanabham and the intelligence failure of the State Government machinery. He demanded an immediate investigation into the intel failure and the collapse of law and order in Tuni town in the wake of Kapu Ikya Garjana.
He said both Kaka Kalelkar Committee and the Mandal Commission did not identify the Kapu community as a Backward Class. He said the GO issued for inclusion of Kapus in the BC list was challenged successfully in the courts of law. He further said that even the reservations to the Muslims were successfully challenged. “Of the 175 MLAs, 26 are from the Kapu community and five ministers are Kapus. The Kapus are land-holding communities and not socially backward. While the BCs have caste-based employment, the Kapus do not have such a system,” he said. The Manjunatha Commission, appointed on Kapu issue, must take time to study the issue in great detail, analyse the pros and cons before submitting the report, he added. BJP City president Nagam Shiva and district leader Gajapatiraju were also present.