CCSAP Report - Ministry of Home Affairs

accommodated in the Council of Ministers, even if in a lower proportion. Populist
policies ushered in by powerful Chief Ministers have further helped in
incorporating the poor, on the one hand, while reservation policies have
performed a similar function of incorporating economically rising individuals from
disadvantaged social groups, on the other. Both NTR and YSR made scholarships
and hostels available to students from Dalit, Tribal and OBC groups; other
schemes such as Indiramma housing etc. further placate poor and deprived
sections of the population. Ram Reddy 50 has argued that this politics of
accommodation has allowed the upper castes to retain hegemony over AP politics
at higher levels although the recent trend shows an emerging elite among the
Backward and Scheduled Castes at the grassroots level.
7.17.11 AP is one of the most deeply politicized of Indian states, with party
politics having percolated down to the gram panchayat level. The creation of the
mandal level by the TDP led to further opportunities for politicization and the
rewards associated with it. Members to the Mandal Parishads are directly elected
under party symbols. 51 More recently, the formation of “stake holders”
associations by Chandrababu Naidu created new political space that is parallel
with and sometimes overlaps with the established framework of local self-
governance. This is also in part responsible for the weakness of the panchayats
in AP. The proliferation of institutional sites for political participation has made
grass roots politics that much more competitive. It also provides a platform for
the development of party cadre, a strategy that was well-exploited by NTR and
Chandrababu Naidu. It also makes it easier to mobilize the common people
around various causes – as presently seen in the Telangana movement.
7.17.12 Political power in a country like India is also exercised through
administrative systems – a reason why the public employment issue has been the
50 Ibid.
51 Powis, Benjamin 2003 “ Grass Roots Politics and the „Second Wave of Decentralization‟ In Andhra Pradesh”, in Economic
and Political Weekly, Vol. 38, No. 26,pp2617-2622
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