Will counter BJP propaganda over Women's Reservation Bill, says Maharashtra Congress leader Praniti Shinde

Shinde, a special invitee to the Congress Working Committee, said that if the PM was serious about empowering women, he could have passed the bill earlier as the BJP has a brute majority in the Lok Sabha since 2014, reports ETV Bharat's Amit Agnihotri.

New Delhi: The BJP wanted to have electoral gains in the 2024 national elections over the women’s reservation bill but the Congress will counter that campaign, the grand old party said on Wednesday. “The bill was passed by the Manmohan Singh government in 2010. It sailed through the Rajya Sabha but we could not get it passed in the Lok Sabha, where the BJP and some other anti-women parties opposed the legislation. The bill had been pending since then. If the PM was serious about empowering women, he could have passed the bill earlier as the BJP has a brute majority in the Lok Sabha since 2014,” Maharashtra Congress Working President and special invitee to the Congress Working Committee Praniti Shinde told ETV Bharat.

“We know that the PM has brought it now to benefit in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. We know that the BJP will try to publicize the passage of the bill. But we will counter their propaganda across the country. The speech given by our leader Sonia Gandhi today in the Lok Sabha will form the basis of our narrative across the country. It is our bill and we own it,” she said.

The Congress leader alleged that while the BJP was only paying lip service to the female voters, the grand old party had always been pro-women. “The BJP is basically anti-women. I remember how then Lok Sabha MP Yogi Adityanath used to speak against the women’s reservation bill saying 90 percent of the lawmakers were against it. In contrast, the Congress always works to empower women through various programs. In fact, our former prime minister late Rajiv Gandhi pushed the idea to give 33 percent reservation to women in the Panchayati Raj institutions. Today, there are lakhs of elected women heads in village Panchayats across the country,” said Shinde. “We will tell the women of the country about these facts,” she said.

The Congress leader further said that party leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi have been raising a slogan “Adhi Abadi, Pura Haq” to empower women voters who form half the electorate across the country and will continue to work on that plan ahead of the 2024 national polls. She said that besides the Panchayats, over the past years various Congress state governments have been running pro-women schemes.

“We decided to provide an economic cushion to women through state specific allowances. We promised that allowance in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka and have delivered. We made bus travel free for women in Karnataka and this has led to their increased mobility. Similar schemes are being implemented in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh besides drives to bring more girls to schools. We are making promises for women’s allowances in other poll going states like Telangana and Madhya Pradesh and we will implement the schemes there also,” said Shinde.

She said that the Congress “does what it says”. “Priyanka ji started the “Ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon” campaign to empower women ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls and gave 40 percent tickets to women despite opposition from within. Priyanka ji later said she wanted to give 50 percent tickets to women in the state.

It was a highly successful campaign and connected with the women voters but it did not bring electoral results. But that did not stop us. We gave tickets to as many women as possible in other state polls and gave them important party roles by including 15 women in the 84 member Congress Working Committee. During Rahulji’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, a full day was devoted only to women participants in Maharashtra as a special gesture,” said Shinde, who recently became a special invitee to the CWC.