Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday appeared perplexed over the low representation of women in the new AICC team, in the constitution of which he himself played a major role.
Rahul, who had handpicked most of the office bearers in the recently-reshuffled AICC, said at his first meeting with them that there were very few women among those attending and promised to increase their representation to 50 per cent in next two to three years. “Gandhi talked about how to ensure 50 per cent representation of women in AICC. It’s not about reservation. It’s about their representation. When he observed their presence is not in the proportion it should be, he said it is less but it will definitely be 50 per cent in the coming two-three years,” Congress spokesperson Bhakta Charan Das said, after Rahul’s two-hour long meeting with newly appointed AICC general secretaries and secretaries.
In Rahul’s team, formed to prepare the Congress for 2014 lok Sabha polls, Ambika Soni is the lone woman among 12 AICC general secretaries while of the 44 secretaries, only five are women — less than 9 per cent.
Of them, Prabha Kishore Taviad, MP from Gujarat, is secretary attached to Rahul, who has kept the charge of frontal organisations, while Priya Dutt has been assigned to help Ajay Maken in Communication, Publicity and Publication. Other three — Geetashree Oraon, Vijay laxmi Sadho and Asha Kumari — have been attached to various general secretaries and given charge of one State each. In fact, Meenakshi Natrajan, who was attached as secretary with Rahul earlier, has been dropped.
Even among the Congress Working Committee, the highest decision making body of the party, the representation of women is dismal. CWC, which is headed by a woman Congress president Sonia Gandhi, has only three other women — Ambika, Hema Prova Saikia and Sushila Tiriya — among its 21 members. Of the 15 permanent invitees to CWC just one woman Mohsina Kidwai while there is no representation of fair sex among five special invitees.
Significantly, in the Screening Committees constituted for the five election going States — Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Rajasthan — there is no representation of women.
Rahul faces a daunting task if he really wants to implement his promise within the next 2 to 3 years as there is a huge gap as far as representation of women in Congress is concerned. He is also likely to face resistance from his male colleagues who have successfully averted the passage of Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament despite lip service from Congress.
Meanwhile, Rahul tried to allay apprehensions of the old guards by asking youngsters to respect and use their experiences. Though the meeting was primarily introductory, Rahul told functionaries that they must connect with masses to strengthen the party and otherwise will be held accountable.