Telangana Congress Government’s OBC Outreach Faces Legal Roadblocks

The Telangana High Court’s decision to stay the state government’s order providing 42 per cent reservation to Other Backwards Classes (OBCs) in local body elections has set off a new round of political sparring in the state. The ruling Congress, which announced the enhanced quota, projected it as a historic correction in favour of the marginalised. However, the court’s intervention has reignited the broader debate over the 50 per cent cap on reservations imposed by the Supreme Court — a ceiling that state after state has sought to challenge in pursuit of social justice.

The Congress government is now considering moving the Supreme Court to vacate the stay. Yet opposition parties see the move as little more than political theatre. The BJP and the BRS have accused the government of playing to the gallery ahead of the local body polls, arguing that the decision was neither legally sound nor grounded in genuine concern for backward communities.

What was meant to be the Congress’s major social justice pitch has thus become a contentious political flashpoint — reviving old questions about the balance between electoral expediency and the constitutional limits set by the Supreme Court.

Ahead of the last Assembly election, the Congress had promised to conduct a comprehensive caste survey and enhance reservations for backward classes. Known as the Kamareddy Declaration, it pledged comprehensive measures offering numerous incentives, including 42 per cent reservations for backward classes.

After coming to power, the government carried out the survey and, based on its findings, introduced a bill to raise the quota for OBCs to 42 per cent in local bodies, education, and government jobs. The bills are currently awaiting the governor’s approval.

Even before the legislative process was completed, the government issued an order implementing the 42 per cent OBC quota in local body elections. Acting on this, the State Election Commission (SEC) notified the election schedule, with polling expected to begin on 9 October. However, the government order was soon challenged in the Telangana High Court, which stayed the enhanced quota. In response, the SEC suspended the election process altogether.

These rapid developments have once again stirred a heated political debate around reservation in Telangana — reviving old arguments over the limits of affirmative action, the 50 per cent ceiling imposed by the Supreme Court, and the political motivations behind the Congress government’s decision.

Amid the political uproar, Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy convened a high-level meeting on Saturday to discuss the fallout of the High Court’s stay. It is understood that the government has decided to approach the Supreme Court to challenge the order. Senior advocate and Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi also attended the meeting, indicating the seriousness with which the state government is treating the issue.

While opposition parties accuse the Congress of lacking sincerity, several social justice movements have urged the state to take a stronger stand and push for the removal of judicial caps on reservations. They argue that the 50 per cent ceiling imposed by the Supreme Court is incompatible with the social realities of states like Telangana, where OBCs constitute a substantial portion of the population.

The opposition, however, sees the controversy as a political stunt. The BRS, still smarting from its electoral defeat, has accused the Congress government of trying to mask its failures with symbolic measures. “By issuing a government order, the Congress is trying to overcome the political challenges it faces due to its misrule,” said B. Vinod Kumar, former MP and BRS spokesperson. Speaking to Outlook, he added, “The government has become a laughing stock for thinking it can circumvent a Supreme Court-imposed limit through an executive order. During our rule, we too tried to raise OBC reservations, but the President rejected the bill due to the judicial ceiling. The Congress knew this would not pass legal scrutiny, yet it went ahead, hoping for political mileage.”

Vinod Kumar further alleged that the Congress was now attempting to drag the BRS into the controversy. “They are asking why we haven’t impleaded in the case challenging the GO. Our answer is simple — we are not interested in engaging in dirty politics over BCs. If the BJP and the Congress are truly sincere about empowering the backward classes, they should work together to bring a constitutional amendment to overcome the Supreme Court’s limits,” he said.

The Telangana High Court had earlier directed the state government to hold local body elections within three months and complete the process by 30 September. However, after the court stayed the implementation of the 42 per cent OBC reservation, the SEC suspended the election process altogether.

The controversy follows the Telangana Assembly’s passage, in March 2025, of two key pieces of legislation — The Telangana Backwards Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats and Appointments) Bill, 2025 and The Telangana Backwards Classes (Reservation in Rural and Urban Local Bodies) Bill, 2025. These bills proposed to increase reservations for backward classes from 29 to 42 per cent, for Scheduled Castes from 15 to 18 per cent, and for Scheduled Tribes from 6 to 10 per cent.

The Congress government has defended the move as a step rooted in data and social justice. It argues that the decision followed the Social, Educational, Economic, Political and Caste (SEEPC) Survey, which found that backward classes make up 56.33 per cent of Telangana’s population. Based on these findings, the state constituted a Backwards Classes Commission, which recommended raising the quota to 42 per cent in education, employment, and local governance.

However, political fault lines have deepened around one aspect of the new quota — the inclusion of backward Muslims within the OBC category. Of the 42 per cent quota, 10 per cent is earmarked for Muslim communities identified as backward. The BJP has seized on this to accuse the Congress of indulging in “minority appeasement”, while the state government insists the classification is purely socio-economic, not religious. “Backwardness has no religion,” a Congress leader remarked, underscoring that communities were included only after data-backed verification.

According to Gowd Kiran Kumar, a research scholar and national president of the All India OBC Students Association, the impasse reflects a broader constitutional challenge. “The Union government must bring an amendment to overcome the judicial cap on reservations,” he said. “The 10 per cent quota for the economically weaker sections (EWS) was cleared without any survey or data, in just a few days. But the judiciary’s 50 per cent limit on caste-based reservations remains untouched, despite it being set without comprehensive data. The Telangana Bill should be included in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution to protect it from judicial scrutiny,” he added.

With the local body elections hanging in the balance, the reservation row has transformed into a high-stakes political contest. For the Congress, which rode to power on promises of a caste survey and expanded social justice, the issue is both a test of credibility and an opportunity to consolidate its OBC base. The BRS, still recovering from its electoral setback, hopes to use the legal reversal to portray the government as incompetent and insincere. The BJP, meanwhile, is sharpening its Hindutva pitch by opposing the inclusion of backward Muslims, while simultaneously accusing the Congress of misleading the OBCs with constitutionally untenable promises. As the matter heads towards the Supreme Court, Telangana’s politics once again finds itself at the crossroads of law, social justice, and electoral strategy — where each party seeks to turn a constitutional question into political capital.