Owaisi Terms Women's Quota Bill Deceptive' and Exclusionary'

HYDERABAD: Dubbing the women’s reservation bill a “women deception bill, anti-OBC and Muslim women bill”, AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi said the bill was not an inclusive one, but one of exclusion.

Addressing the Lok Sabha in the debate, he said, “If the justification is to give more representation to women, then why is that justification not being extended to OBC women and Muslims? We know that Muslim women are seven per cent of the population, but they form only 0.7 per cent of the MPs. Of the 690 women who were elected till the 17th Lok Sabha, only 25 are from the Muslim community.”

Recounting the history of Muslim women representation, he said, “There was no Muslim women representation in the 1957, 1962, 1991 and 1999 Lok Sabha. When I say this, I am told that reservation cannot be given on religious grounds. It is deceit of Muslim women. They face discrimination as Muslims and as women. They don’t want the Bill to benefit OBCs and Muslim women in Parliament and Assembly.”

Owaisi said that the annual dropout rate of Muslim girls is 19 per cent, while it is 12 per cent for other women. “Nearly half of the Muslim women are illiterate. Government wants to increase representation for upper-caste women and not for OBC and Muslim women. With the rise of Hindu majoritarian nationalism and the formation of a Hindu vote bank, there is political isolation of Muslims. Is that good for the country? This is a bill for those who are already represented in this august House. This selective affirmation is an election stunt,” he said.

Reeling out statistics, he said, “There are only 120 OBC MPs in this House. The PM is an OBC but only 22 per cent of MPs are OBCs. There are 230 upper-caste MPs. The government talks of Vandana Scheme and then releases Bilkis Bano rapists. The female work participation has reduced from 30 to 19 per cent. Sixty-three million women have disappeared in the country and between 2007 and 2022, 22 million women dropped out of the workforce, leaving only nine per cent employed.”

“There has been no representation of women from the Jain community and why there has been no Muslim MP from Gujarat since 1984?” he asked.