Nadda said there are some legal obstacles to implementing women's reservation before the next general election, due in April-May next year. The BJP today said it was impossible to implement women’s reservation in time for the upcoming election and promised to implement it for the 2029 election.
“If you pass this bill today, I can promise you that there will be MPs from women’s reservation quota in this house in 2029,” JP Nadda said.
Nadda said there are some legal obstacles to implementing women’s reservation before the next general election, due in April-May next year.
JP Nadda: There are some constitutional and legal limitations [behind this]. We have to give women reservations. But on which seats? Who will decide this? This cannot be decided by the ruling front. It has to be done by a quasi-judicial body. We have to nominate [such a body]. If not, then what stops me from reserving [Rahul Gandhi’s constitutency] Wayanad for women? What if I reserve Amethi?
Nadda said 33% of women’s reservations cannot be implemented without a census to find out how many women are there. “There also has to be a public hearing via the quasi-judicial body, seats have to be selected, the number [of seats] has to be decided, and after all this, it has to be taken forward.”
Mallikarjun Kharge, leader of opposition for Rajya Sabha, however, took issue with Nadda’s stand and said there was no impediment to implementing the reservation in time for the next election.
“If women can be given reservation at Panchayat level and Zila Panchayat levels [without a census to find out their number], why can’t we implement it for parliamentary elections,” he asked.
Nadda refuted the allegation that BJP was simply trying to take political dividends by passing the bill, without actually providing the reservation for several years. “If all we wanted was to take political advantage, then we would have implemented it with immediate effect. What cannot be done [cannot be done]. This is the shortest way,” he said.
He said the opposition parties are clamouring for immediate implementation of the reservation because they don’t know ‘how to rule’.
“If you knew how to rule, you would not be sitting on that side,” he said, pointing to the opposition benches.
He said Modi only did things in a concrete fashion, not in a trivial fashion, and that is why it will take till 2029 to implement the reservation.
“We are empowering women in a concrete fashion,” he claimed.
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