Passage of women's reservation bill is priority: Congress

Hyderabad: “The CWC has sought passage of the women's reservation bill that has had a chequered history. It was pioneered by former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi way back in 1989. He was also instrumental in reservation in local bodies. We have demanded the introduction of the bill in the Lok Sabha,” said Pawan Khera, AICC in-charge of communications.

Addressing the media here on Sunday, he said, "The Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) had an overwhelming response from the people across the country. As Rahul Gandhi told us this has won the support of people from all sections. The guarantees the party is giving take origins from our interactions at the grass-roots level. He cautioned us against walking into the trap laid down by the BJP with irrelevant issues."

Rahul Gandhi asked us to focus on understanding why we are in politics and put the guarantees into practice, he said.

The issue of Narendra Modi overtaking Rishi Sunak in the popularity charts is irrelevant. There is a growing demand for reviving BJY in order to reach out to more people. This will be 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 pocket tonnes of money and spend them on buying MLAs and bringing down state 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?"

On allegation of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma that the Congress party has given up the north east to China, Khera said, "The BJP actually surrendered 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 him for this outlandish claim. All the patrolling points which our soldiers freely went to are not accessible now. The greatest damage to India's sovereignty has been done by them”, he said.

“Why are the talks happening? Did our soldiers die encroaching Chinese land; no, they died saving our land from them. The BJP should be ashamed for giving a clean chit to China”, Khera said.

The women reservation bill will be passed in its present form and Rahul has said that policies of the government should be in sync with the population for which we need caste-based census. Hence, our plea for caste census, he said.

As the Congress was to hold its meeting here, the BRS, MIM and the BJP have come together to take the attention away. We have condemned the arrest of former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh Nara Chandrababu Naidu, he added.

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