Out of the 115 candidates announced by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) on Monday, August 21, ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in Telangana, only seven tickets were allotted to women candidates. While 114 names were announced for 115 seats, sitting MLAs were denied tickets in seven constituencies. BRS currently has 104 MLAs in the 119-member Telangana Assembly. 

The seven women candidates who will be contesting from the BRS ticket includes Kova Lakshmi from the Asifabad constituency, Sabitha Indra Reddy from the Maheshwaram constituency, G Lasya Nanditha from the Secunderabad Cantonment constituency, Gongidi Sunitha from Alair,  Banoth Haripriya Naik from Yelandu, Bade Nagajyothi from Mulugu and M Padma Devender Reddy from Medak. 

BRS MLC and CM KCR’s daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha led a sit-in protest and six hour long hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, demanding that the Women’s Reservation Bill be tabled in the Parliament on March 10 this year. She stated that women representation is important in politics if India needs to develop at par with other countries. 

However, after the BRS released the candidate list on Monday, BJP spokesperson Rani Rudrama criticised Kavitha and said that she must apologise to the women in Telangana as her party did not give 33% reservation for women. “The BRS party ignoring women in its list shows that Kavitha’s protests in Delhi demanding that the Centre enact 33 percent reservation for women in the Parliament was just a drama to divert attention from her alleged role in the Delhi liquor scam,” she said.