POLITICS
Quota for women, votes for BJP? Politics behind women’s reservation bill
- Admin
- Sep 19, 2023
Quota for women, votes for BJP? Politics behind women’s reservation bill
Bill tabled in Parliament Tuesday proposes to reserve 1/3 of seats in Lok Sabha & state assemblies for women. BJP leaders have hailed move as 'game-changer'.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) expects the women’s reservation bill to create a new narrative consolidating support for it among women voters ahead of assembly polls in several states and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, according to sources in the party.
The constitutional amendment bill introduced in Parliament Tuesday, termed ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’, proposes to reserve one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women — who have been increasing their participation in the election process and voting for the BJP in larger numbers, according to party leaders.
“Women are moving forward, and it is important that in policymaking, our mothers, sisters and women should make a contribution,” he added, urging members to get the bill passed unanimously. The PM also said that the “bill will be remembered in the history of India”.
Speaking to ThePrint, a senior BJP leader said that while the “opposition parties are trying to unite the Other Backward Classes (OBC) by demanding a caste census, our focus is the women’s segment”.
“The BJP had sensed the potential of this votebank in its early days of governance,” the leader added, while admitting that “other chief ministers have also reaped benefits from women voters through women-centric development initiatives, such as Nitish Kumar in Bihar and Naveen Patnaik in Odisha”.
Talking about the bill, Rama Devi, a BJP MP from Bihar, said, “It will be a game-changer in terms of women-centric development. While women leadership at the grassroots-level has already been increased, this bill will give more power for leadership development.”
Similarly, Queen Oja, a BJP MP from Guwahati, said that “this historic bill will be a game-changer for gender justice and empowerment. Women have to encounter several hurdles to enter politics since our society is male-dominated”.
The issue of women’s reservation has been pending for 27 years due to a lack of consensus, after a bill was first introduced in Parliament by the Deve Gowda government in 1996, then reintroduced several times by the Vajpayee government, and then by the Manmohan Singh government.
Union Law Minister and BJP leader Arjun Ram Meghwal, who introduced the bill in the House, also termed it “historic” and a “game-changer”.
“Many governments tried but PM (Modi) has finished this historic work,” he told parliamentarians, adding that “women have been at the centre of our policymaking from day one. Be it the Jan Dhan Yojana or Mudra scheme or PM housing scheme, women have been the biggest beneficiaries”.
He further said that once the bill was passed, the number of women MPs in the 543-member Lok Sabha would surge from 82 to 181.
“Women are moving forward, and it is important that in policymaking, our mothers, sisters and women should make a contribution,” he added, urging members to get the bill passed unanimously. The PM also said that the “bill will be remembered in the history of India”.
Speaking to ThePrint, a senior BJP leader said that while the “opposition parties are trying to unite the Other Backward Classes (OBC) by demanding a caste census, our focus is the women’s segment”.
“The BJP had sensed the potential of this votebank in its early days of governance,” the leader added, while admitting that “other chief ministers have also reaped benefits from women voters through women-centric development initiatives, such as Nitish Kumar in Bihar and Naveen Patnaik in Odisha”.
Talking about the bill, Rama Devi, a BJP MP from Bihar, said, “It will be a game-changer in terms of women-centric development. While women leadership at the grassroots-level has already been increased, this bill will give more power for leadership development.”
Similarly, Queen Oja, a BJP MP from Guwahati, said that “this historic bill will be a game-changer for gender justice and empowerment. Women have to encounter several hurdles to enter politics since our society is male-dominated”.
The issue of women’s reservation has been pending for 27 years due to a lack of consensus, after a bill was first introduced in Parliament by the Deve Gowda government in 1996, then reintroduced several times by the Vajpayee government, and then by the Manmohan Singh government.
Union Law Minister and BJP leader Arjun Ram Meghwal, who introduced the bill in the House, also termed it “historic” and a “game-changer”.
“Many governments tried but PM (Modi) has finished this historic work,” he told parliamentarians, adding that “women have been at the centre of our policymaking from day one. Be it the Jan Dhan Yojana or Mudra scheme or PM housing scheme, women have been the biggest beneficiaries”.
He further said that once the bill was passed, the number of women MPs in the 543-member Lok Sabha would surge from 82 to 181.
