Telangana government considers removing two-children criteria for rural local body polls

Hyderabad: A proposal to do away with the restriction that bars persons having more than two children from contesting rural local body polls is under the consideration of the Telangana government.

Sources from the ruling Congress party said on Saturday that the government was thinking of going back to the old policy which was changed in the 1990s by the government of undivided Andhra Pradesh. The two-children norm was repealed for urban local bodies in Telangana earlier.

The Andhra Pradesh Assembly has recently passed a bill enabling persons with more than two children also to contest in urban local body elections, reversing the previous rule.

Leaders of different political parties have expressed concerns in recent times that the southern states are set to lose in number of Lok Sabha seats in the upcoming delimitation exercise.

Speaking at an event in October, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy said that the southern states have implemented the policy of family planning efficiently but the Centre is not ready to appreciate the south. He was referring to the delimitation of constituencies in the offing.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his Tamil Nadu counterpart M K Stalin have also recently spoken in favour of having more children.

While Naidu flagged the 'ageing population', Stalin was subtly referring to a Tamil adage and said the Lok Sabha delimitation exercise may make people think about raising "16 children".