Stepping up pressure on the Narendra Modi government, the Trinamool Congress on Monday is set to move a motion urging the government to bring in the Women’s Reservation Bill during the current Budget session, which has another four working days.
The Women’s Reservation Bill was first introduced in 1996 by the Deve Gowda government in Lok Sabha. Similar versions of the bill were introduced later in 1988, 1999, and 2008. In 2008 the bill was introduced in Rajya Sabha and after going through the standing committee, was passed by the Upper House in 2010 and sent to the Lok Sabha. However, the Bill lapsed along with the end of the 15th Lok Sabha in 2014.
TMC floor leader Derek O’ Brien has submitted a motion under Rule 168 which allows members to raise issues of public interest. The bill, Mr. O’ Brien said, has been necessitated by the fact that India has slipped 28 places to 140 among 156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021. This was largely due to a significant decline in the share of women among ministers, which halved, from 23% in 2019 to 9.1% in 2021. The share currently stands at 14%, Mr. O’Brien said.
The Modi government 2.0 has 11 women ministers which is the highest number in 17 years. However, the BJP could not keep up the track record in U.P. where there are only five women in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s cabinet of 52 ministers.
The TMC on the other hand brags about having the only woman chief minister in the country and also that 34% of its MPs in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are women.
Currently, women MPs account for only 15% of the 17th Lok Sabha and 12.2 of Rajya Sabha. This is lower than the global average of 25.5%. Only 8% of the total MLAs are women across all States in India.
