While many women MPs from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its allies as well as opposition parties supported the women's reservation bill, several of them had apprehensions about its implementation.
The Parliament on Wednesday started a debate on the women’s reservation bill to seek its passage in Lok Sabha. The seeks to reserve one-third or 33 per cent of the total seats in Lok Sabha, state legislative assemblies and Delhi assembly for women. Several women MPs from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its allies as well as opposition parties spoke on the issue, expressing their support or apprehensions about the Bill.
Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi opened the floor from the Opposition’s side extending support to the Bill on behalf of the party. However, she questioned the delay in implementing the legislation, which is expected after the delimitation exercise and may take many more years to come into effect. The former Congress president also pressed for a caste census, along with including sub-quota for SCs, STs, and OBCs in the women's quota bill. The BJP criticised the Congress saying the party was trying to play politics on it and wondered why the opposition keeps on claiming that nothing has been done.
Named ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’, the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023, was tabled in Lok Sabha by Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on Tuesday. It is the first bill introduced in the new Parliament building.
Here are the top quotes from women MPs on the women’s reservation bill:
1. Congress Parliamentary Chairperson Sonia Gandhi: "The Indian woman has patience like the ocean. She has worked for everyone's betterment like a river… Any delay in implementing the women's reservation bill will be a gross injustice to Indian women."
2. DMK MP Kanimozhi: "You call this bill 'Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam'. Stop saluting us. We don't want to be saluted, we don't want to be put on pedestals, we do not want to be worshipped, stop calling us your mothers, wives, sisters... we want to be respected as equals."
3. Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule: "Nishikant Dubey said that INDIA is on the side of people who ran women down and spoke derogatorily...There was a Head of the BJP in Maharashtra. He told me personally on record on television - "Supriya Sule ghar jaao, khana banao, desh koi aur chala lega. Hum log chalayenge."
4. Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra: "It is both my pride and shame that I stand here in India's Parliament speaking on women's reservation bill...Are we women less than cows that we need to wait while you count and draw lines? We don't need any more vandanas."
5. Union Minister Smriti Irani: "If we look from the perspective of the dignity of the Constitution, then (Goddess) Lakshmi has taken a Constitutional form through this (Women's Reservation) Bill… The Congress had proposed women's quota for not more than 15 years, but BJP guarantees reservation of seats for women. "
6. Minister of State Anupriya Patel: "I hail this (Women Reservation) bill and thank the prime minister for it. I feel this Women Reservation Bill is the need of the hour."
7. Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi: "The important question here is when will it (Women's Reservation Bill) be implemented?"
8. Trinamool Congress MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar: “We are the only state that has a woman CM in the country, BJP has govt in 16 states but no woman CM.”
Dastidar also pointed out that in TMC over 33 per cent of MPs have always been women. "Right now, more than 40 per cent of the TMC MPs are women," she said, adding that everyone should show genuine respect to women.
Apart from these, several other women parliamentarians spoke on the issue in Lok Sabha today. Sangeeta Azad of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) spoke in support of the women’s reservation bill but she also demanded that the quota should be increased to 50 per cent. She also demanded that reservation should be provided not just in Lok Sabha and state assembly but also in Rajya Sabha and Vidhan Parishad, and pressed for OBC reservation, caste census and implementation before the 2024 polls.
On the other hand, Bhavana Gawali of the Shiv Sena (Shinde) said her party fully supports the bill as it will benefit all women in the country. She said the women parliamentarians know how much they have to fight all through to reach Parliament.