Congress dubs women’s reservation bill election jumla, huge betrayal of women’s hopes

PTI, Sep 19, 2023, 7:20 PM IST

New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday termed as ”election jumla” and ”huge betrayal of hopes of women” the women’s reservation bill brought by the government, noting the Centre has stated that the reservation will be effective only after a Census and delimitation exercise is conducted post-enactment of the bill.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh wondered whether the Census and delimitation will be done before the 2024 elections, pointing out that the Narendra Modi government has not yet conducted the 2021 decadal Census.

In a post on X, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, ”In a season of election jumlas, this one is the biggest of them all! A huge betrayal of the hopes of crores of Indian women and girls.”

”As we had pointed out earlier, Modi government has not yet conducted the 2021 Decadal Census making India the only country in G20 that has failed to carry out the Census. Now it says that the reservation for women will come into effect only following the first decadal Census conducted AFTER the Women’s Reservation Bill has become an Act. When will this Census take place?” Ramesh said.

The bill also says the reservation comes into effect only after the publication of the next Census and the subsequent delimitation exercise thereafter, he pointed out.

”Basically the Bill gets the headlines today with a very vague promise of its implementation date. This is nothing but EVM – Event Management,” he said.

In another post, Ramesh said If the prime minister had any real intention to prioritise women empowerment, the women’s reservation bill would have been implemented immediately without the ifs and buts and all other conditions. ”For him and the BJP, this is only an election jumla that delivers nothing concrete,” he said.

Former law minister and senior Congress leader Veerappa Moily slammed the government, saying bringing the bill at the last minute, the BJP thinks they can get some political advantage. ”It has a social aspect, social justice to be given to 50 per cent of the population of the country, that kind of commitment is not demonstrated by the NDA and the BJP government,” he said.

”We could not get that type of cooperation from BJP (in 2010), they were not that willing even though we called them for a meeting to gather the momentum of consensus but we could not obtain it and that is why we could not get it passed in Lok Sabha and hence we did not introduce it in the Lok Sabha,” said Moily, who was the law minister when the bill was passed in Rajya Sabha.

”When the election is approaching, it is absolutely political. They don’t have legitimate interest in women as a class but they are only politically interested to gain power,” he alleged.

Congress MP Manish Tewari said the bill introduced by the government is a ”betrayal of the women’s movement”.

”The clause 334A says the reservation will come into effect post the first census that is conducted after the constitution amendment is passed and then the delimitation exercise which would follow that. So essentially it means that before 2029 there is going to be no women’s reservation,” he said.

If the government was serious about it, the government should have brought women’s reservation now,” Tewari said.

Congress’ social media department head Supriya Shrinate said, ”Modi ji did not spare even the women of this country with his jumlas. Their (BJP) dubious intentions have became clear in the Women’s Reservation Bill.”

”If you really wanted to ensure women’s participation, you would have brought the bill passed in the Rajya Sabha in 2010 to the Lok Sabha. This jumla for half of the population is not right,” Shrinate said.

The government on Tuesday introduced a constitutional amendment bill to reserve one-third of seats in Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women.

Making it the first bill to be introduced in the new Parliament building, the government said it will enable greater participation of women in policy-making at the state and national levels and help achieve the goal of making India a developed country by 2047.