Cong pioneered women's bill: Pawan Khera

Hyderabad: The CWC sought the passage of women's reservation bill has had a chequered history. It was pioneered by the late PM Rajiv Gandhi way back in 1989. He was the one who passed the reservation in local bodies in parliament. An attempt made earlier to pass it saw it through in the Lok Sabha but was stuck in the Rajya Sabh and is still alive. We have demanded the introduction of the bill in the Lok Sabha, said Pawan Khera, AICC communications incharge.

Addressing the media he said, "The Bharat Jodo yatra took the party back to the days of it's movement days of yester years. The people hence not just supported it and got support from the people. This is what Rahul Gandhi told us in the CWC meeting. He has been proved right. The guarantees the party is giving are derived with interactions from the grass roots. He stressed the need for ideological clarity and all of us emerged from the meeting with more clarity as he warned us against walking into irrelevant issues raised by the BJP."

Rahul asked us to concentrate and focus on the actual reason for us to be in politics and implement the policies where we are in power and put the guarantees into practice where we are making a bid to come to power, he said.

The issue of Modi overtaking Rishi Sunak in popularity is irrelevant to media persons and people also. The demand for relaunch of new legs of Bharat Jodo yatra has been made again and will happen as per the directions of the Congress president, he added.

Commenting on the one nation one poll, he said, "It is an attack on the federal structure of the country. The party at the centre likes to make tonnes of money and then like to spend it on buying MLAs and bringing down governments. If for some reason a state government falls should the assembly wait for five years to go to polls along with Parliament polls. Is that fair on the people of the State and democratic principles? The country's federal structure is at stake."

Rahul spoke about reservation based on population and we will update the country on it in due course of time, and he said responding to queries.

On allegation of the Assam CM that the Congress party has given up the north east to China, Khera said," BJP actually gave up lands to China along with a clean chit that they have not encroached our land. Modi has said nobody has entered our land. No single Indian would ever forgive this. All the patrolling points which our soldiers freely went to are not accessible now. Why did they hold 18 rounds of talks if everything is fine. This means where Chinese stand today is their land. The greatest damage to India's sovereignty has been done by them which no Indian will not forgive them for, he said.

The patrol points we went to before April 2020 are not accessible now a senior police officer said this. There has been no response from the government on this. Why are the talks happening? Did our soldiers die encroaching Chinese land, they died saving our land? They should feel ashamed for giving clean chit to them. After soldiers died in Kashmir recently there were celebrations in the BJP headquarters gloating over success of G20 even as Kashmir mourned, Khera charged.

The women reservation bill will be passed as it is and Rahul has said that policies of the government should be in line and should be in sync with the population numbers for which we need caste based census. How do we arrive at those numbers? So we are seeking caste census, he said.

As the Congress was to hold it's meet here in Hyderabad all three parties BJP, BRS and AIMIM have come together and are trying to take the attention away. We have condemned the arrest of Chandra Babu Naidu, he added.

On a video of the Karnataka CM refusing to put a Tilak on his forehead going viral, Khera said, "How is that relevant to the unemployed youth of India, person unable to have three meals a day and how is it relevant to the person who is struggling to get rice because FCI has been ordered to deny rice to the government for it's scheme. How is it relevant? You are proving Rahul Gandhi right. Why are we walking into these traps? This is a trap laid by the BJP. They are proving Rahul Gandhi right."

We are absolutely confident of forming the government in Telangana and there is no need for alliance with any party, he added.