Rajya Sabha nominations in 2018 again stirred the debate about parties showing nepotism and fielding candidates belonging to the same community (https://www.telugu360.com/rajya-sabha-nominations-caste-equations-telugu-states-part1/). However, let’s take a pragmatic approach instead of pointing any single party and examine the behavior the major parties since beginning.
Since, 1952 to till date (not including 2018 nominations), total of 229 candidates have been sent to Rajya Sabha.
| Party | Number of MPs sent to Rajya Sabha so far |
|---|---|
| INC | 137 |
| TDP | 50 |
| Independents | 13 |
| CPI | 12 |
| Janatha | 4 |
| CPM | 4 |
| BJP | 3 |
| JP | 3 |
| Congress (O) | 1 |
| TRS | 1 |
| YSR | 1 |
| Grand Total | 229 |
Congress party:
The number represents number of nominations, not the number of MPs. For example, V Hanumanth Rao is nominated thrice, so it is counted as 3. Also, Kapu’s include Kapu, Munnuru Kapu, Turpu kapu etc and other allied castes. Other/ No info represents the candidates that are from other states and not from AP, so their caste is irrelevant in this analysis. We admit, we could not get information of caste of some of the MPs, especially those belonging to initial decades.
Obviously, Congress has sent maximum Reddy candidates to RS. Its whopping 28%. Kamma, Kapu, Muslim and SC/ST (combined) got almost equal opportunities. However, opportunities to BCs are comparatively less. More than 60% opportunities grabbed by upper castes.
| Congress Party | No of MPs Sent so RS so far |
|---|---|
| Reddy | 39 |
| Kamma | 16 |
| Muslim | 15 |
| kapu | 14 |
| SC | 12 |
| Brahmin | 7 |
| BC | 6 |
| Christian | 5 |
| Kshatriya | 4 |
| ST | 3 |
| Velama | 3 |
| Others/ No info | 13 |
| Total | 137 |
TDP
Here also Kamma got 16 out of 50 opportunities. It is whopping 32%.
Surprisingly, BCs got very less opportunities in TDP as far as Rajya Sabha is concerned. Christians never got RS seat through TDP.
| TDP | Number of MPs sent to RS so far |
|---|---|
| Kamma | 16 |
| Kapu | 10 |
| Reddy | 8 |
| BC | 4 |
| Muslim | 4 |
| SC | 4 |
| Velama | 2 |
| ST | 1 |
| Vaisya | 1 |
| Grand Total | 50 |
BJP:
BJP got only 3 opportunities, out of those 3, it gave 2 opportunities to candidates from other states (e.g. Nirmala sitharaman, Suresh Pabhu). It seems, for BJP, Andhra is just a state that satisfies the needs of their candidates belonging to other states.
| BJP | Number of MPs sent to RS so far |
|---|---|
| Kamma | 1 |
| Others | 2 |
| Grans Total | 3 |
CPI:
Communist party of India , for that matter all communist parties, do not care about caste. Most of the communist leaders, though they belong to upper castes they fought against caste system (at least in the initial decades). So, seeing communist parties also with the same lens of other parties is not correct. Moreover, many communist leaders, they did not disclose their castes on public platforms and also they cut-off their last names that reveal their castes. So we have more count in “No info” section here.
Having said that, it is still surprising to see mostly upper caste people being nominated for RS though communist party as well.
| CPI | Number of MPs sent to RS so far |
|---|---|
| Kamma | 4 |
| Kapu | 1 |
| Brahmin | 1 |
| Muslim | 1 |
| Others/No Info | 4 |
| Reddy | 1 |
| Grand Total | 12 |
CPM:
The same logic applies to CPM as well.
In fact, before TDP, critics of communist parties used to quote – “They (CPI, CPM) are not comrade parties, they are “Kamma, Reddy” parties. Before TDP, most of the people belonging to Kamma caste were with Communist parties as the Congress was dominated by Reddys all the time and communist parties were the main alternative to Congress those days.
| CPM | Number of MPs sent to RS so far |
|---|---|
| Kamma | 3 |
| Reddy | 1 |
| Grand Total | 4 |
There are other parties like Janatha, Congress (O), that sent members to Rajya Sabha from AP but those parties went into oblivion later.
YSRCP has sent 1 MP to Rajya Sabha so far, belonging to Reddy community.
Overall, these are the statistics of various parties sending MPs to Rajya Sabha.
Zuran
