Women Fight Back Against Discrimination in Andhra Pradesh
Vijayawada, India – When Meda Ramana was elected as the head of the Garapadu village council in Andhra Pradesh, numerous villagers came to her with concerns about being unjustly denied access to government welfare programs.
In early 2021, around 50 residents, predominantly women from Dalit, indigenous, and religious-minority communities, reported that their annual welfare benefits—which ranged from 10,000 rupees ($119) to 120,000 rupees ($1,430)—had suddenly been terminated by the state government.
Initially, Ramana suspected it was a simple clerical mistake. However, upon investigation, she learned from village secretariat staff that these residents were deemed ineligible because they were labeled as having “migrated.” Despite her insistence that the affected villagers still lived in Garapadu, her arguments fell on deaf ears.
Ramana escalated the issue to higher authorities in the district administration, who instructed the village staff to initiate an inquiry. However, the local officials ignored these orders, prompting Ramana to suspect deeper political motives.
A Political Narrative Unfolds
During the regional elections in May 2024, which coincided with India’s national elections that re-elected Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Andhra Pradesh saw a fierce competition between two main regional parties—the incumbent YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).
As the TDP emerged victorious, investigative findings revealed that the outgoing YSRCP government had been executing an intricate, data-centric voter manipulation strategy. This approach unjustly cut off welfare access for marginalized groups who were predicted to support the opposition party.
India has witnessed multiple instances where ruling parties, including the BJP and others at the state level, have exploited government-acquired personal data during campaigns. The TDP had similarly misused such data when it was in power during the previous 2019 election.
This investigation exposes the tangible consequences of this data misuse, highlighting how vulnerable individuals were stripped of their rightful benefits and their democratic freedom was compromised.
A Strategy of Exclusion
In Andhra Pradesh, welfare distribution has become a pivotal component during elections. The YSRCP claimed to have allocated around 4.3 trillion rupees ($50.7 billion) in its five-year tenure, targeting approximately 127.4 million individuals from impoverished backgrounds. This included assistance through pensions and food support.
To enhance welfare delivery, the YSRCP appointed paid “volunteers” whose job it was to ensure benefits reached residents directly, replacing the previous system overseen by elected village councils, or panchayats.
Each volunteer was responsible for 50 households—amounting to approximately 260,000 volunteers covering over 1.3 million homes across the state, each earning 5,000 rupees ($60) monthly from state funds. These volunteers wielded considerable power and access to technology that allowed them to gather vast swathes of personal data from citizens, which YSRCP then used to construct detailed voter profiles.
Focusing on Opposition Supporters
Upon reviewing the list of families excluded from welfare, Ramana and her husband noticed a troubling trend: “Every single family that was wrongly cut off from benefits supported the TDP,” Sagar, Ramana’s husband and a dedicated TDP advocate, asserted. This led them to believe the village volunteers were purposely targeting these households to compel them into switching their political allegiance to the YSRCP.
In April 2022, 27 women from Garapadu took a stand by filing a lawsuit against the local volunteers and government officials, accusing them of “illegally” terminating their benefits for what they alleged were “political reasons.” The state high court ruled in favor of the women, affirming their eligibility for the welfare schemes and condemning the actions of the village volunteers.
Following the court’s ruling, the benefits for these women were reinstated. Reports also confirmed that residents from several other villages lodged over 100 similar legal complaints that year, with many alleging that welfare access had been blocked based on political biases.
Tracking Political Preferences
How, however, did these volunteers ascertain villagers’ political affiliations? An examination of the volunteer scheme’s documentation and interviews with political operatives illuminated the unsettling methodology. Volunteers were tasked with conducting a “baseline survey” of households utilizing a mobile application that collected extensive personal data, including caste, religion, employment, and health status.
These details were meticulously logged and persistently updated through periodic surveys and communication via WhatsApp. Volunteers created detailed profiles on each household’s needs, sentiments, and feedback regarding governance.
Sagar stated, “This constant monitoring over five years allowed volunteers to understand the full dynamics of each household, making it easy to identify who supported the YSRCP and who favored the opposition.”
Exploitation of Data
Critics, including N. Ramesh Kumar, a former Andhra Pradesh election commissioner, have characterized this approach as one of the most extensive and sophisticated voter manipulation campaigns ever undertaken—comparable to the controversial practices of Cambridge Analytica. The YSRCP volunteers maintained a dual registry, creating highly accurate voter profiles by merging citizen data with government records.
Collecting voter preferences through surveys is common practice globally, yet when a ruling party exploits government-acquired personal data for these purposes, it skews the electoral landscape, undermining equity and fairness in elections.
Despite the Supreme Court of India mandating the establishment of a personal data protection law in 2018, no such legislation has been enacted, leaving citizens vulnerable to systemic data abuse.
Resistance and Accountability
Documented evidence indicates that the operational framework of the volunteer scheme was developed in close collaboration with the party’s election strategists, who ensured that local leaders needed to endorse any selected volunteers. This indicative nepotism raised concerns about accountability and governance standards.
Moreover, despite assurances that all collected data would remain secure within the state’s data systems, volunteers often shared detailed household insights directly with local YSRCP affiliates before reporting back to the government. This chain of information exposed a blatant conflict of interest, as local leaders pressured volunteers to manipulate beneficiary lists and exclude TDP supporters.
The fallout from these operations was significant, as a plethora of complaints ultimately led to criminal actions taken by the Election Commission against the volunteers implicated in swaying public opinion for the YSRCP.
A Template for Future Elections
Though the YSRCP lost control during the elections, its troubling use of personal data created a precarious framework for discrimination based on political beliefs. Experts warn that this trend threatens the integrity of secret ballots, allowing for the potential of voter coercion based on their previously disclosed information.
Throughout this ordeal, women like Meda Ramana have emerged as powerful advocates for justice, showing resilience in the face of adversity while challenging systemic discrimination and the misuse of power in their communities.
