HYDERABAD: There were mixed reactions from the BJP and opposition parties on the introduction of the women’s reservation bill, Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, in Parliament on Tuesday with the BJP saying this was a “historic day that was 27 years in the making”, and the Congress stating, “Modi, with this bill, has his eyes on women’s votes in the five states going to polls shortly.”
AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi said that his party was opposed to the Bill in its present form as it does not specify reservations for women from minority communities.
The BJP state general secretary said, “The BJP had first introduced the Bill when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the prime minister but the politics of the day did not allow the bill to be passed. History has been created today. In the last nine years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has put women at the heart of every scheme, be it PM Awas Yojana, or the Ujwala cooking gas cylinder schemes. We can see that Modi works for equality and uplift of women. And this was the first Bill introduced in the new Parliament House giving women the importance they deserve.”
Meanwhile, Owaisi spoke to reporters in Delhi, asking why there was no representation for OBCs and Muslim women in the Bill. "If those who are not represented so far are not included, are the ones that need representation. This is the biggest lacuna in the Bill and we do not support it” he said.
In Hyderabad, Mahila Congress president Mogili Sunitha Rao Mudiraj said, “The bill, even if it’s passed in this Parliament, will be implemented only after the delimitation exercise. Why did the Modi government not hold a Census if it was serious about implementing women’s reservation? Modi will face the repercussions of this failed exercise.”
On the bill, social media cell chairperson for AICC, Supriya Shrinate said, “We are the original architects of the bill. Let’s not forget that it was Rajiv Gandhi who started it in the first place with one-third reservation for women at the local bodies. We have ensured the first women chief minister, prime minister, first women president of the republic, first woman speaker of Lok Sabha.
