New Delhi, 20 September: The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed a bill to provide 33 percent reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
Being a constitutional amendment bill, it was passed by division of votes. 454 votes were cast in favor of making the 128th amendment to the Constitution and 2 votes were cast against it. It should be noted that two-thirds majority is mandatory for passing the bill.
60 members of the House participated in the discussion on Nari Shakti Vandan Bill. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal replied to the discussion on the bill.
The discussion was initiated by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and the Home Minister participated in the discussion at the end. After this the votes were divided through ballot papers.
Responding to the discussion on the bill in the Lok Sabha, Arjun Ram Meghwal said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has talked about women leadership development and this bill has been brought with that view. Women have 24 percent representation among public representatives in the world.
He said, at present, 15.1 percent women are public representatives in India. Passing of the bill will ensure 33 percent representation of women and will increase our ranking in the world.
He said that if women come into leadership from motherhood, there will be sensitivity, spontaneity in the decision process and for the welfare of the nation and society.
Answering the question related to delimitation, the Law Minister said that his government will not let the Women’s Reservation Bill get stuck this time. There are many technical aspects associated with the Bill. Like which seat will be reserved for whom. Due to this the bill may get entangled in further legal process. It can be stopped from being implemented through PIL. In such a situation, considering all the issues, it has been said in the bill to give reservation to women after delimitation.
Meghwal said that the Women’s Reservation Bill was not passed during the tenure of Congress. The main reason for this was that there was no policy, determination and leadership. Now under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, there is both policy and intention.
On raising the issue of number of OBCs in the number of secretaries of Rahul Gandhi, Meghwal said that at present the secretaries are from the 92nd batch. At that time there was Congress government. Why did he not do any work on this subject? There is also a process to become a secretary.
During this, Arjun Ram Meghwal said that Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar had given voting rights to all adults and accused Congress of defeating him twice. Congress did not give Bharat Ratna to Ambedkar ji. He said that women today celebrate voting like a festival and thank Baba Saheb for this.
Meanwhile, when Congress created ruckus, the Home Minister interrupted and said that it was BJP that defeated Rahul Gandhi. this is fact. Similarly, Bhimrao was the Congress leader who defeated Ambedkarji.
While the bill was being considered for passage in the Lok Sabha late in the evening, RSP leader NK Premachandran said that the bill talks about reservation around 33 percent, which should be changed to 33 percent only.
On this, the Home Minister replied that only 33 percent reservation will be given during delimitation. However, in some situations, 33 percent division is not possible, that is, it is not possible to divide, for such a situation it has been included in the Bill.
During section-wise consideration, AIMIM demanded division of votes on the amendment proposal. Due to this, the process of passing the bill was delayed. After this the proceedings of the Lok Sabha were adjourned till 11 am on Thursday.
