The All India Congress Committee (AICC) took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today, with its spokesperson Onika Mehrotra slamming the ruling party for turning the important issue of women’s reservation in Parliament and state Assemblies into a pre-election jumla (false promise).
Addressing a press conference here today, Mehrotra said that it was the Congress Party that had raised the issue of women’s reservation back in 1989 under former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Under the BJP, more than 30 years later, the name of the bill has changed but nothing beyond that, she added.
The Congress is happy that women will have seats reserved for them in Parliament and Assemblies and voted overwhelmingly for the bill when it was introduced in the Lok Sabha during the recent special session.
However, the AICC questioned how the BJP has taken all the credit for the bill.
“A lot of glorification has been done over the Women’s Reservation Bill. We’re obviously very happy that women are going to get the reservation, but the ifs and buts are in the bill,” Mehrotra said, pointing out that women will have to wait several years before they see any benefit as the reservation will depend on the results of the delimitation of seats, which itself will be based on the already delayed national census.
“Until those two things are cleared, women will not get the power to contest,” Mehrotra said, calling this dangerous. “So, the whole idea behind this is defeated.”
The BJP is good at making false promises when elections are near and the way the saffron party introduced the reservation bill is an eyewash that the women of India have seen through, she added.
“The BJP thinks that even today they can fool the people of the country. But they fail to understand that by giving Rs 200 off on a gas cylinder, they think they have done charity for women? No, they’ve not, it was not well taken with women again,” she continued. “They (the BJP) knew very well that if they do not come up with anything concrete for the women, they will lose the women voters. Be it unemployment, be it the price rise, crime against women, everything is just haywire. So I think everybody is so sick of the BJP.”
