As soon as Meda Ramana was elected the head of Garapadu village council, several residents complained to her of being wrongfully excluded from government welfare schemes. About 50 villagers, mostly women of the Dalit, Indigenous, and religious-minority communities, told her that their annual welfare benefits had been abruptly stopped by the state government. At first glance, it seemed to be an innocuous data entry error.
Andhra Pradesh is one of the two states that held regional elections in May 2024. The incumbent YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) ran a sophisticated, data-driven voter influence campaign that wrongfully denied poor and vulnerable communities their welfare benefits because members of those communities were likely to vote for the opposition.
It was at this point that Ramana began to smell a political ploy. She complained to higher officials in the district administration who ordered the village staff to conduct a probe, but the village staff ignored those directives, indicating systemic issues within the administration.
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