Rajya Sabha elections will be held in the year 2018, to elect the retiring members of the Rajya Sabha, Indian Parliament’s upper chamber. The elections to be held on 23 March 2018 to elect 58 members from 16 States. From Andhra Pradesh, 3 members and from Telangana ,3 members are retiring on 2nd April, 2018. List of members retiring – Chiranjeevi, Renuka Chowdary, Rapolu Ananda Bhaskar, P. Govardhan Reddy, T.Devender Goud and C. M. Ramesh Now, out of 3 seats, TDP has strength (of MLAs) to elect 2 members and YSRCP for 1 member. Same way TRS has strength to elect 3 members from Telangana. But after seeing the nominated candidates, as always, their “caste” angle and parties’ stand on various castes surfaced for the debate. Let’s see the list

TDP nominated below 2 candidates, both belonged to upper castes/

• 1. CM Ramesh (Velama)
• 2. Kanakamedala ravindra Kumar (Kamma)

YSRCP nominated for the only seat available to the party, an industrialist who is from the same community as party chief.

1. Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy (Reddy)

TRS nominated 3 members for Telangana

• 1. Joginapalli Santosh Kumar (Velama)
• 2. Banda Prakash Mudiraj (BC)
• 3. Badugula Lingaiah Yadav (BC)

After the list is out, the “mud slinging” game is started by political parties as well as their fans. YSRCP fans allege TDP for giving both seats to upper castes, one for Velama and one for Kamma. Initially reports came about Varla Ramayya (SC) will be nominated from TDP but later he is replaced by Ravindra (Kamma) that gave even more chance for critics to point out TDP.

At the same time, YSRCP received even stronger criticism, as the party nominated (again) Reddy candidate for RS. In 2016 also Vijaya sai Reddy was nominated to RS and he is also from the same community. Moreover, YSRCP giving all posts to the same community. They gave PAC chairman post to Buggana Rajendra Reddy, that made Jyothula Nehru and others to leave the party. Also, Jagan recently tweeted, ” We commit to the people of Andhra Pradesh to ensure their rights, and bring back Rajanna’s Rajyam ” but the statement is trolled and will be trolled as long as Jagan doesn’t demonstrate the commitment he is talking about by giving opportunities for other castes.

However, there are some basic questions one get regarding this Rajya Sabha nomination by parties and the caste equations – ” Is it mandatory or necessary for parties to consider caste equations while fielding candidates to Rajya Sabha”. Of course, it is not mandatory. Parties can field any candidate. However, we have to remember one thing. Ours is Representative democracy but not participatory democracy. A participatory democracy or pure democracy is a form of government wherein the citizens have a direct say in the formulation of laws and issues that affect them while a representative democracy is a form of government wherein its citizens elect their representatives who will have say in formulation of laws. Countries like Switzerland follow participatory democracy while India follows representative democracy. In a representative democracy, people feel the need for their representation. Typical Indian citizen is deriving his identity from various factors like his region, religion, caste, language and several other factors. So he feels he is sufficiently represented based on who are presenting in Legislative houses. So, though it is wrong for political parties to field based only on caste equations, they have to take utmost care to make sure no segment feels alienated.

Let’s analyze, since beginning, which party gave importance to which community and did they balance all of them – in next article.

– Zuran