In all fairness to the ‘fair sex’, Punjab Vidhan Sabha on Friday “unanimously” passed a resolution to urge the Centre to enact the Women's Reservation Bill to provide 33 percent reservation for women in both the Parliament and all the states’ Legislative Assemblies.
The resolution came days after Congress national president Rahul Gandhi had written to all the states ruled by Congress or its ally to pass a resolution for one-third reservation of women in the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies.
The move is seen as Rahul’s efforts to give credence to the Congress party’s demand to pass the Women's Reservation Bill by first passing a resolution for the same in the states represented by the party or its allies.
Notably, BJP-led NDA Government at the Centre has given enough representation to the female MPs in the Union Cabinet and also at other occasions, and Congress’ move is consider as an attempt to hijack the same.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has included women MPs on key posts in the cabinet — Sushma Swaraj (External Affairs), Nirmala Sitharaman (Defence), Uma Bharati (Drinking Water and Sanitation), Maneka Sanjay Gandhi (Women and Child Development), Harsimrat Kaur Badal (Food Processing Industries), and Smriti Zubin Irani (Textiles and Information and Broadcasting).
Capt Amarinder, moving the resolution during the second and the last day of the winter session, pointed to the Congress Government's decision to reserve 50 percent seats for women in urban local bodies and panchayati raj institutions to urge the Centre to hasten the enactment of the Bill.
This would fulfil a legitimate and long pending demand of women to ensure their empowerment, he said.
The Bill would ensure greater equity and balanced representation for both men and women in the national electoral process and decision making, the Chief Minister added.
Underlining the fact that then Congress president Sonia Gandhi had initiated the process towards ensuring substantial women representation in the Parliament and the Vidhan Sabhas, Capt Amarinder said that the Congress Government had ensured passage of the earlier Bill in the Upper House but it had lapsed in the Lok Sabha due to the indifferent attitude of the opposition.
Once passed, the Bill would ensure reservation of 181 seats out of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats, besides earmarking 1370 assembly seats out of the total 4109 assembly seats across the nation.
Speaking on the issue, BJP MLA Som Parkash urged the government to also consider how much seats would be reserved for the SC/BC candidates out of the 33 percent reservation for the women, to which Capt Amarinder clarified that it was upto the Centre to decide as the Vidhan Sabha can only request them.
Speaker Rana KP Singh asked Parkash to give advice to their party leaders at the Centre regarding the same.
Appreciating the resolution, AAP MLAs Rupinder Kaur Ruby, Sarabjit Kaur Manuke, and Aman Arora stressed on respecting all women, irrespective of their party or position.
“MLAs should be asked to respect all. It is not the way to say someone that ‘SHO ban gayi, rabb taan ni ban gayi’,” said Ruby without naming anyone, but in a veiled attack on Congress MLAs Devinder Singh Ghubaya.
Arora also listed out several incidents to point how women officers were disrespected by the ruling party members, while calling for setting a conduct or procedure so that things were not repeated.