Kapus to intensify agitation for special status

HYDERABAD: Kapus are on the warpath. Despite Chandrababu Naidu’s overtures to reach out to the community by promising to set up a Kapu development corporation with a corpus fund of Rs 100 crore and include them in the BCs list, Kapu leaders have threatened to launch a movement to achieve their just demands.
Leading the brigade is former TDP minister and MP Mudragada Padmanabham, who warned the government of dire consequences if the Kapus are not given due recognition.“There are two crore Kapus who have been given by a raw deal by successive governments. Naidu rode to power with our support but deceived us by doing precious little to alleviate our problems,” Padmanabham said.
Kapus will wait till January-end to allow the government to formulate an action plan for their welfare, failing which they will intensify the movement.
“The government was supposed to release Rs 5,000 crore for development of Kapus as promised by Naidu when he took over as CM. But a mere Rs 50 crore was allotted in the last 16 months. The chief minister is taking us for a ride,” the ex-minister thundered.
Kapus have been demanding that they be brought under the ambit of reservations extended to other BC communities.
Soon after he became the CM, Naidu had vowed to implement his promise of including Kapus in BCs. “His promise has remained hollow. All of his time is consumed in planning for his dream capital project of Amaravati. Now that Kapus have threatened to call his bluff, Naidu is trying to buy peace with them by referring the Kapu quota matter to the BC commission,” reasoned intellectual Tataji. But Kapus will have none of it.
While Reddys and Kammas are the politically-dominant communities, the Kapus are generally a peasant community with a significant influence in the coastal districts, particularly in the districts of East Godavari and West Godavari.
“A majority of Kapus fall below the poverty line and are economically as well as educationally backward. But they supported TDP in 2014 elections in the hope that Naidu would bail them out. Their hopes were dashed as Naidu’s sole agenda seems to be Amaravati and land pooling,” Reddipalli Satyanarayana of AP State Kapunadu explained.
Highly-placed sources said Nara scion Lokesh stepped in after a group of Kapu leaders met him recently on the government’s failure to keep its promise. “Kapus constitute 28 per cent of the state’s population.
Both Congress and TDP have been promising to extend reservations since 1956 but ditched them,” pointed out senior analyst D N Ramesh.
Vexed with the government for dragging its feet on the issue, Kapu leaders are now bringing all sub-castes within the community under one roof. Sources said TDP MLA Thota Trimurthulu is talking to various Kapu sanghams.
“Instead of the BC commission discussing ways and means to include Kapus among BCs, the government should issue a GO categorizing Kapus as BCs,” Padmanabham said. "We will not rest till our demands are met," he warned.