PM owes apology for U-Turn on women’s quota, says Congress
The Congress on Friday alleged that the Modi Government’s “U-turn” on implementing the women’s reservation law is aimed at covering up its “monumental failures” in governance and “severe setbacks” to foreign policy.
The Opposition party claimed that the PM owes an “apology” to the women of India as he did not accept the Congress’s demand of implementing the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023, from the 2024 polls itself.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications, Jairam Ramesh, said the prime minister has started writing articles in the media, trying to project himself as the sole champion of women’s reservation in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha from 2029 onwards.
“Actually, he owes an apology to the women of India. When the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023 was passed by Parliament in 2023 unanimously, the Indian National Congress had demanded its implementation from 2024 itself,” Ramesh said on social media.
But this was not acceptable to the PM, who made the reservation dependent on the delimitation and census exercises that he had failed to conduct and then dithered on for many years, the Congress leader said.
Ramesh claimed that 30 months later, facing defeat in the Assembly elections, in spite of the Election Commission functioning as a subordinate office of the Union Home Ministry, the PM has changed his mind.
The Congress leader’s remarks come a day after Modi said that the proposed amendments to the Women’s Reservation Act are not just a legislative exercise but a reflection of the aspirations of crores of women across India, urging all MPs to come together to support this significant move.
In a signed article posted on his website narendramodi.in, the prime minister also said the initiative is an affirmation of a principle that has long guided India’s civilisational ethos, that society progresses when women progress.
He said it is imperative that the 2029 Lok Sabha elections and Assembly polls in various States in the coming times are conducted with women’s reservation in place.
The prime minister said the nation stands at the threshold of a historic occasion, and it is an opportunity to deepen the foundations of the country’s democracy and to reaffirm the collective commitment to equality and inclusion.
He said that on April 16, Parliament will be convened to discuss and pass an important bill that advances women’s reservation.
The Budget session of Parliament has been extended, and a special three-day sitting of the House has been convened from April 16 to 18, when the ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’, more commonly known as the Women Reservation Act, would be amended for its implementation from the 2029 general elections.
The provision to provide 33 per cent reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and State assemblies was brought by amending the Constitution in 2023, but it will come into effect after the completion of the delimitation exercise on the basis of the 2027 Census.
