BRS MLC Kalvakuntala Kavitha will once again protest at Jantar Mantar in December this year during the winter session of Parliament in support of the demand for the Women’s Reservation Bill.
The BRS leader plans to invite key women leaders from the BJP and the Congress including Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Smriti Irani and DK Aruna to join the sit-in. She announced that the BRS will extend its support to the Bill when it is introduced in Parliament.
Kavitha’s announcement came after the BJP attacked the BRS for naming only seven women in the BRS candidate list. She accused the Opposition of attacking the BRS on this ground since they don’t have an issue to criticise the ruling party.
“This issue is in Delhi, and not in gully and if there is political will the Bill can be passed by this Modi regime,” said Kavitha.
She added that Opposition parties were behaving as if this was her personal issue and related to her household when this was actually an issue of the woman and everyone should chip in. Political parties are narrow minded and trying to reap benefits and even pitting woman against woman to sideline the entire matter, she rued.
Kavitha blamed both the main national parties pointing out that neither Sonia Gandhi nor Priyanka Gandhi spoke about the Women’s Reservation Bill after it was passed in the Rajya Sabha in 2010. BJP ruled states like Uttar Pradesh but did not implement the women’s reservation in local bodies while Haryana tried to bar women by linking it to educational qualifications.
Pointing out that in the past 75 years there has hardly been any progress on this front; Kavitha recalled that while Nehru Cabinet had only one woman minister, the current Cabinet under Narendra Modi has only two ministers. In the first Lok Sabha there were only eight per cent women while currently it rose to 12 percent, she added. Kavitha had held a day long hunger strike at Jantar Mantar on 10 March while the ED was hounding her in connection with the Delhi Liquor Scam.