Delhi Minister Atishi on Tuesday alleged that the introduction of the Women Reservation Bill by the Centre in Parliament is an attempt to befool women as the timeline for its implementation has been pushed beyond the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The Woman and Child Development Minister dubbed the move a “political manoeuvre” by the BJP-led Centre, which she said, is not concerned about women’s welfare.
Referring to former Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a BJP MP who is accused of sexual harassment, Ms. Atishi said, “The BJP is Brij Bhushan’s party. It is an anti-women party.”
The Centre on Tuesday introduced a constitutional amendment Bill to reserve one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for women, reviving a Bill pending for 27 years. According to the provisions of the ‘Narishakti Vandan Adhiniyam’, the reservation will come into effect only after the delimitation or redrawing of constituencies, which can be undertaken only after 2026.
Ms. Atishi demanded that the amendments must be made to the reservation Bill and the government should not wait for the completion of the next Census and delimitation process to provide reservation.
‘Why not from 2024?’
Had the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi been genuinely concerned about the women, they would have made it a point to implement the provisions of the Bill from next year’s Lok Sabha polls, the Aam Aadmi Party leader added.
“Why can’t he [the PM] provide reservations on the existing 543 seats? This Bill is nothing but a political manoeuvre and should be renamed as the ‘Mahila Bewakoof Banao’ Bill,” she alleged.
In response to Ms. Atishi’s statement, Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said that the leaders of AAP know that they cannot stop the Prime Minister from getting the reservation Bill passed in Parliament.
“AAP is in a state of shock after the Bill was introduced in Parliament,” he said. Their leaders are trying to mislead people through their dirty politics, he alleged.
Mr. Kapoor said women in India have suffered due to the dirty politics of the Congress and its allies since the independence of the country.
