Women’s Reservation Bill: Proposed legislation to ensure 33 percent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies was cleared by the Union Cabinet, sources told India Today TV on Monday. The government is yet to make an official statement on this but it is believed that the women’s reservation bill will be brought in for discussion during the ongoing special session of Parliament.
The meeting was called at 6:30 pm, after the first sitting of the special Parliament session.
In a tweet, Prahlad Singh Patel confirmed the development. He said only the Modi government had the moral courage to fulfill the demand for women’s reservation.
In May 2008, the Women’s Reservation Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha and was referred to a standing committee. The Bill was passed in the Upper House in 2010 and then it was sent to Lok Sabha. However, the Bill could not be passed and lapsed with the 15 Lok Sabha.
According to the law, any bill pending in Lok Sabha lapses with the dissolution of the House. Bills pending in Rajya Sabha are put in the “live register” and remain pending.
He said of the 7,500 parliamentarians to have contributed to the proceedings of the two houses in the past seven decades, 600 were women.
It also remains to be seen if the INDIA bloc of parties would remain united on the issue since the Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), and other “social justice parties” fear that upper-caste women might monopolize the reservations for women, and had demanded “reservation within reservation”, while the Congress doesn’t.
