PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/ Dehradun
Uttarakhand Congress staged a dharna outside Vidhan Sabha building on the issue of women’s reservation in the legislative bodies.
Addressing the party workers, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Ganesh Godiyal said that the BJP government should implement the Women’s Reservation Bill which was passed unanimously in the year 2023 without any delay. He said that the BJP government mischievously linked the Women Reservation Amendment Bill with the delimitation bill in parliament. Godiyal said that everyone knows that late Rajiv Gandhi introduced a bill for reservation for women in local bodies, which was passed by the late Narasimha Rao government. Today, as a result of this, there are 15 lakh elected women representatives in local bodies across the country.
Former chief minister Harish Rawat said that in 2008, when the Congress party government led by Manmohan Singh passed the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha and tried to introduce it in the Lok Sabha, the present ruling BJP MPs had strongly opposed it. He said that the government should provide 33 per cent reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabhas immediately.
MLA and chairman of the party’s election campaign committee, Pritam Singh said that the BJP leaders are consistently misleading the people of the country with a well-planned strategy, but now the people of the country are not going to fall into the trap of BJP. He said that the Congress party has always been in favour of giving equal rights to women.
Senior leader Harak Singh Rawat stated that the country’s women will never forgive the BJP. He said that after a long wait, the Women’s Reservation Bill was passed in 2023 with an absolute majority, with all opposition parties, including the Congress party, supporting the bill. However, the BJP is plotting to shelve it by delaying its implementation, he said.
Former cabinet minister Navprabhat, treasurer Aryendra Sharma and other senior leaders also attended the protest.
