New Delhi:The Congress has reconstituted its working committee with 15 women members in the first such move which the party said is in sync with the grand old party’s commitment to female empowerment goal.
The Congress Working Committee, which was reconstituted by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge on August 20, has 15 women members including former party chief Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Besides them, the list includes veterans like Ambika Soni, Kumari Selja, Meira Kumar, Rajani Patil, Deepa Das Munshi, Pratibha Singh, Meenakshi Natarajan, Phulo Devi Netam, Yashomati Thakur, Praniti Shinde, Supriya Shrinate, Alka Lamba and Netta D’Souza.
“Our leader Sonia Gandhi is committed to women’s empowerment through greater representation within the party. The same emphasis of the party is also reflected during ticket distribution. The reconstituted CWC which has 15 women members is a step in that direction,” AICC general secretary in charge of Chhattisgarh and CWC member Kumari Selja said.
“This inclusion will go a long way towards encouraging women workers in the party and will attract women outside the party to join and support us,” she said. According to AICC in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir and CWC member Rajani Patil, the Congress had always been committed to women’s empowerment and supported the 33 per cent reservation for them in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies but the ruling BJP was not passing the legislation despite a comfortable majority in the Lower House of Parliament.
“They only talk about women empowerment. Let them bring the women’s reservation bill to Parliament. Why have they been waiting for nine years,” Patil said. “The Congress move to induct 15 women in the all-powerful CWC will send a strong signal among our rank and file. Over the coming days, we will launch special drives to reach out to the women voters who constitute half of the electorate,” she said.
Over the past year, under the guidance of Priyanka Gandhi, the Congress has been coming out with separate manifestos for the women voters in states like Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka where its focused approach brought in rich electoral dividends. The party is adopting a similar strategy for poll-bound Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana in a bid to defeat the BJP, which rules Madhya Pradesh.
According to both Kumari Selja and Rajani Patil, the membership of the recast CWC had been increased from 24 earlier to 39 as per a resolution adopted at the Raipur Plenary Session and was part of the party’s move to involve the other marginalized sections of society like SC, ST, OBC, and minorities as well. “This social inclusion has always been practiced in the party but it was felt that it should be reflected in the CWC to live up to our claims,” said Kumari Selja.
Accordingly, the recast CWC has a total of 84 members including 39 members, 18 permanent invitees and 9 special invitees. Further, the number of SC members was 12, ST 4, OBC 16, minority 9, women 15, and general category 43. Together, the SC, ST, OBC, minority and women were 66.6 percent while the young members around 50 years of age or below are 21, comprising 25 percent of the total members.
