Parliament saw heated debate on Tuesday over the contentious women’s reservation bill, as a few of its provisions didn’t sit well with the opposition.
As soon as the new Parliament’s two Houses met for the first time on Tuesday, lawmakers of the Centre and the Opposition began exchanging jabs over the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, or Women’s Reservation Bill, which Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal had tabled in the Lok Sabha.
The bill ensures that women will hold 33% of the seats in state assemblies and the lower house of Parliament. Beginning with the date the Act takes effect, the reservation will be exercisable for a period of 15 years. More time can be added by the Parliament.
The planned reservations would reportedly be put into effect after becoming an act once the delimitation procedure based on the following decadal census is finished.
women’s Bill is the debate
Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party, will speak in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday during the discussion of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, or women’s reservation bill.
What is the purpose of the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill, 2023?
In the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill of 2023, three new articles and one new clause are proposed.
According to the new 239AA clause, women must hold one-third of the seats reserved for members of the scheduled caste (SC), one-third of the total number of seats to be filled by direct elections, and one-third of the seats in the Delhi Legislative Assembly.
In accordance with the new Article 330A, women are now eligible for a third of the Lok Sabha seats allocated for SCs and STs, as well as a third of all seats to be filled through direct elections.
According to the new article 332A, women are entitled to one-third of the seats reserved for SCs and STs, as well as one-third of all seats to be filled through direct elections to the Legislative Assembly (LA).
The new article 334A states that the reserve will take effect after the delimitation is completed and the pertinent data from the first census has been released. After each succeeding exercise of delimitation, the rotation of seats for women will go into force.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi advocated for greater participation of women in determining policy and claimed that September 19 will go down in history as the day the women’s reservation law was introduced. The opposition and the center have traded insults over the new bill.
The BJP government’s Bill, according to the opposition, including Congress, is a “jumla” and a “huge betrayal” of Indian women. To this, the BJP responded that Congress was never serious about providing reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
“Unfortunately, the opponents cannot understand this. What’s worse, according to Union Minister Amit Shah, is that the Congress has never taken women’s reservations seriously outside of tokenism.
Protests followed Kharge’s remark on “weaker women.”
Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, sparked a heated debate when he said that most political parties do not grant seats to women from underrepresented groups. He continued to criticize PM Modi, claiming that his administration has caused the federal government to “weaken.”
Every political party has the practice of giving tickets to less strong women. I am aware of how parties choose women from reserved castes and socially inferior sections…Women from weaker areas are handed tickets with the instruction not to speak. Women are falling behind in all political parties because of this. You deny them their rights and their right to speak, Kharge remarked in his speech.
Nirmala Sitharaman, the union finance minister, responded angrily to Kharge’s remarks, saying that the opposition cannot denigrate people in such a way. Droupadi Murmu: “Who is he? A leader of the opposition cannot disparage individuals in this way or distinguish between men and women. All women should be given reservations, the Union minister stated.
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