New Delhi, 15 April (H.S.):

Ahead of the upcoming three‑day special session of Parliament, which begins on Thursday, leaders of the opposition INDIA Bloc held a meeting on Wednesday at the residence of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge in Delhi. The meeting was focused on the Women’s Reservation Law and the proposal to increase the number of seats in Parliament. A strategy was charted on the implementation of the women’s reservation law and the issue of raising the total seat count.

At the meeting were Congress President and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal, General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh, AAP Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, MP Kapil Sibal, and several other leaders.

Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi, speaking to reporters in Mumbai on this bill, said that the Women’s Reservation Act, passed unanimously in 2023, was historic as it promised greater participation of women in Parliament and state assemblies.

At that time, she added, they had argued that it was not necessary to wait for the census or delimitation, but the government had not heeded their concerns. Now, she said, the government is itself acknowledging the need to increase the number of seats.

The country’s female population, she argued, has been reduced to a mere vote bank, while their real concerns have not been entrusted with a genuine platform. The time, she said, has come for this to change.

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, speaking to journalists in Baharampur, West Bengal, said that this amounts to a violation of the Model Code of Conduct imposed by the Election Commission. For the Congress, he said, this is nothing new. In Congress‑ruled states such as Telangana, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and in Jharkhand where its allies are in government, women are already being given financial assistance of ₹2,500 to ₹3,000. The Congress, he said, is not proposing any new scheme; it is merely promising to replicate existing schemes in other states. He alleged that women in BJP‑ruled states are not being provided this kind of financial support.

K. T. Rama Rao, Executive President of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, said there is no need to link women’s reservation with delimitation and that the law should be implemented immediately. He pointed out that the bill does not mention any 50‑per‑cent increase in seats, and that his party had opposed such a move during its own term. On this issue, he said, he has also held discussions with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin and other leaders from South India.

Juhi Singh, National President of the Samajwadi Mahila Sabha, said the Women’s Reservation Bill has already been passed and that the Samajwadi Party had supported it. The current debate, she added, is only about how it should be implemented, and on this basis, questions are being raised.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar