Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has decided to remove the `two child’ norm in panchayat elections, that makes people with more than two children ineligible to contest in ‘local’ elections. Following pressure from public representatives, efforts have been made to lift this rule and implement a rule that allows people to contest regardless of the number of children.
A decision to this effect is likely to be taken in the upcoming cabinet meeting. The authorities are taking steps in that direction as Chief Minister Revanth Reddy. With the Sarpanch, MPTC and ZPTC elections to be held soon, public representatives are eagerly awaiting this key decision by the government on the ‘two-child’ rule.
The government is preparing to remove Section 21(3) of the Panchayat Raj Act 2018 to repeal the existing rule that prevents candidates with more than two children from contesting in local body elections. The government believes that the removal of this rule is inevitable in order to provide 42 percent reservation to BCs and allow the rest to contest in the elections.
This provision came into effect in the united Andhra Pradesh on May 30, 1994, as part of family planning measures to control overpopulation. This provision, introduced in 1994, has since become an obstacle for many people to contest in local elections. The then government made a law that people with more than two children are ineligible to contest in Sarpanch, MTTC, ZPTC and municipal elections.
However, as awareness among the people about family planning has increased, many political parties and public representatives have been demanding a change to the old provision for a long time. They are demanding that those with more than two children should also be given the opportunity to contest in local body elections.
This being the case, many states including Andhra Pradesh have removed the two-child rule after the passage of an amendment to the law last year. The coalition government in AP brought an amendment in February last year to remove this provision from the Panchayat Raj Act and the Law Ministry has also issued a gazette notification on this amendment, bringing it into effect from February 11 this year. With this, the Revanth Reddy government is taking rapid steps to remove the two-child rule in Telangana as well.
