Ahead of her appearance before the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the Delhi excise policy case, Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader K. Kavitha led a day-long hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, demanding the introduction of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Budget session of Parliament that is scheduled to begin on Monday.
Nine Opposition parties joined her at the sit-in. The Congress and Trinamool Congress were the notable exceptions in the string of Opposition leaders that visited Ms. Kavitha to express solidarity.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Aam Aadmi Party’s Sanjay Singh, Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Shyam Rajak, Nationalist Congress Party’s Seema Malik, Samajwadi Party’s Pooja Shukla and Akali Dal’s Naresh Gujral were all present at the protest site.
The Samajwadi Party’s presence is significant, considering that when the Congree-led UPA government introduced the Bill in the Lok Sabha, the SP had opposed it, demanding quotas for Scheduled Castes and Tribes and Other Backward Classes within the reserved seats for women as well.
BJP’s 2014 promise
“To increase women’s participation and have adequate representation at all levels of governance, it is important to bring this Bill that has been pending for the last 27 years. Many parties have tried to push the Bill since 1996, but it couldn’t be passed in Parliament,” Ms. Kavitha said, vowing to build a consensus among all parties to force the BJP-led government to fulfil the pre-poll promise made to the electorate in 2014.
Mr. Yechury, who inaugurated the protest, noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that bringing in 33% reservation for women would be a priority for his government. He had repeated this promise at several election rallies ahead of the 2014 elections, but once in power, the BJP failed to take any step forward, Mr. Yechury said.
Long pending Bill
Warning that the country cannot progress unless women were equal stakeholders in all spheres whether economic or political, Mr. Yechury pointed out that a past government had been forced to reserve seats for women in panchayats.. “If you can give reservations for women in Panchayat why can’t it be done for Parliament too,“ he said.
Though the Congress did not participate in the protest, considering the BRS’ anti-Congress stance, the party gave credit to the BRS for showing the way forward. “The landmark Women’s Reservation Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha on 9th March 2010, entirely due to the efforts of the Congress leadership. But it could not find support in Lok Sabha. The Bill has not lapsed. It is alive and pending. What has stopped it from being revived,” Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh tweeted.
