Women's Reservation Bill: Cong to hold press conferences in 21 cities to expose govt

New Delhi: Congress has decided to hold 21 press conferences in 21 cities on Monday, demanding immediate implementation of the Women's Reservation Bill, which was passed by Parliament during the Special Session last week.

Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Pawan Khera said, "Twenty one Cities. Twenty one Women leaders. One Agenda - to expose the treachery by the Modi govt in the name of Women Reservation."

According to reports, MP Rajani Patil will hold a press conference in Ahmedabad, while Mahila Congress chief Netta D'Souza will hold a presser in Hyderabad. Ranjeet Ranjan will hold a press conference in Bhubaneswar, Alka Lamba in Jaipur, Amee Yagnik in Mumbai, Ragini Nayak in Ranchi, and Shama Mohamed in Srinagar, among others.

Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Sunday again said that the Women's Reservation Bill can be implemented tomorrow by allocating 33 percent of Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha seats to women.

"There is no connection between women's reservations and the Decadal Census or Delimitation," he asserted.

"We feel very strongly that Indian women are not participating in the political system the way they should be. The single biggest act to help them participate in politics was carried out by the Congress party, i.e., 33% reservation in Panchayati Raj which was a game changer.”

"Also, please realise that when we were trying to pass women's reservation in Panchayati Raj and also the fact that the RSS doesn't allow women into its ranks. So who is interested in women empowerment is very clear," he added.

On September 22, while addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, Rahul Gandhi trained his guns at the government over the delay in implementing the women’s reservation Bill by citing delimitation and census as reasons to defer it is a ‘diversionary tactic’ and a way to move everyone’s attention away from caste census’.

The Congress Lok Sabha MP from Kerala’s Wayanad had said, "Few days ago the Special Session of Parliament was announced and with a lot of fanfare we shifted from the old Parliament to the new Parliament building."

"We were not aware of what was the main focus of the session. The Women's Reservation Bill is great but we received two footnotes that census and delimitation need to be done before that. Both of these will take years. The truth is that the reservation can be implemented today...This is not a complicated matter but the government doesn't want to do that," the Congress leader had said.

"The government has presented this before the country but it will be implemented 10 years from now. Nobody knows if this will even be implemented. This is a distraction tactic, diversion tactic," Rahul Gandhi said, hitting back at the government.

He also said that he “regrets 100 percent” about not providing OBC quota under the Women’s Reservation Bill that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had brought in 2010.

With inputs from agencies