Private teachers hold key to MLC elections in AP
They were given the right to vote for the first time
Vijayawada: Corporate schools and colleges will decide the winner of the teachers’ constituency MLC elections as private teachers have been given the provision to vote for the first time in the polls.
Most of the corporate schools and colleges belong to TD leaders and ministers.
Earlier, the TD had no domination in teachers and graduates constituencies.
It is alleged that the TD allowed enrolment of private teachers as they are also voters for graduate constituencies.
With the Allahabad High Court’s verdict in 2006, eligible private school teachers were given an opportunity to vote in MLC elections, accordingly the state government had released GO No. 537, on September 28, 2006.
Though this GO is in force since 2006, no private school and college management had given priority to these elections, being scared of eligibility criterion of 3-year salary in bank account, EPF, attendance of three years and pay scale. As the private managements do not follow all these criteria, they had not looked at MLC elections.
This time, Kadapa-Kurnool-Anantapur teachers’ constituency MLC candidate Onteru Srinivas Reddy bought out the details of 2006 Allahabad High Court verdict and made few teachers enrol for voting in elections, with which government-recognised private school and college managements had started enrolling their teachers for elections.
Many private educational organisations belong to ministers like P. Narayana, P. Raghunath Reddy and MLAs. Thousands of teachers had applied for enrolment of their details in both Prakasam-Nellore-Chittoor and Kadapa-Kurnool-Anantapur teachers constituencies, which are under scrutiny stage.
Generally, political parties’ domination is not seen in teachers’ constituency MLC elections, but it is between teachers’ unions. The one who is elected in these elections will form democratic front and fight for teachers issues in the legislative council. In contrast to this, now the TD is involving directly and announced officially their candidates for MLC elections.