While speaking to reporters in Pune on Thursday, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chief Sharad Pawar said the Central Government should give reservation to women before thinking about the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).

Sharad Pawar said, “Recently, Prime Minister Modi spoke about Uniform Civil Code. Our view in UCC is that the Central government has given this issue to the Law Commission and it has sought proposals from various organisations.” “As of now, the Commission has received 900 proposals. I have no idea what is mentioned in those proposals, they did not make it public. Law Commissions, like responsible institutions, should study and work on the proposal/suggestion given to them,” Sharad Pawar added.

He further said, “The second thing in UCC is that the stand of Sikh, Jain and Christian communities should be cleared. I am worried about one thing, I heard that the Sikh community has a different stand. I am collecting more information but I have heard that the Sikh community is not in favour of UCC. The stand of this community cannot be ignored.”
While addressing a press conference on Thursday, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar said the NCP would make their stand clear only after considering all these factors.

He also said a meeting of NCPs national leaders took place in Delhi on Wednesday.
A meeting of the youth wing and women’s wing also took place. The final noting of the meeting will come out in some days
“Some suggestions and discussions took place in four meetings held in Delhi. One of the topics of discussion was UCC. We will study the law commission and other factors related to UCC but before that Central government should take the decision on giving a reservation to women like I did when I was CM of Maharashtra,” Pawar added.

“We gave 33 per cent reservation to women in various Zilla Parishad, Mahanagar Palika, Nagar Palika, Gram Panchayat etc. Later raised it to 50 per cent. As a result, we saw improvement in various organisations and institutions. By taking this into consideration, the central government should give reservations to women,” NCP Chief said.
“If the PM Modi government takes these steps, then we would support them. In fact, I will also make an effort for other parties to support it,” he added.

Pawar said, “After seeing the current picture of the nation and the displeasure among the people about the current government, I feel that this is an attempt to divert the mind of the people from it. It looks people’s displeasure and restlessness have reached the PM.”