Historic surprise of special session revealed, Women Reservation Bill passed by cabinet – central Cabinet approves Women Reservation Bill ntc

An important cabinet meeting took place amid the special session of Parliament. If sources are to be believed, the Women’s Reservation Bill has been approved in this meeting. Many kinds of speculations were being made regarding this bill. But setting aside all the speculations, the Union Cabinet finally approved this bill. After this approval, the Women’s Reservation Bill will be presented in the Lok Sabha.

What is in this bill?

The Women’s Reservation Bill proposes to reserve 33 percent or one-third seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. The bill also proposes sub-reservation for SCs, STs and Anglo-Indians within the 33 percent quota. The bill proposes that reserved seats should be rotated after each general election. Reserved seats may be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in a state or union territory. Reservation of seats for women will end after 15 years of implementation of this Amendment Act.

Bill is pending for 27 years

The Women’s Reservation Bill, pending for almost 27 years, will now come on the table of Parliament. According to statistics, the number of women MPs in the Lok Sabha is less than 15 percent, while their representation in the state assembly is less than 10 percent. The last time action was taken on the issue was in 2010, when the Rajya Sabha passed the bill amid uproar and marshals ousted some MPs who opposed 33 per cent reservation for women. However, this bill was canceled because it could not be passed by the Lok Sabha.

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Support of both BJP and Congress

Both BJP and Congress parties always supported it. However, some other parties opposed it regarding some demands of OBC reservation within women quota. Now once again many parties strongly advocated for bringing and passing the Women’s Reservation Bill in this special session, but the government has said that appropriate decision will be taken at the appropriate time.

14 percent women MPs in Lok Sabha

Talking about the current situation, 78 women members were elected in the Lok Sabha, which is less than 15 percent of the total number of 543. According to the data shared by the government in Parliament in December last year, the representation of women in Rajya Sabha also is about 14 percent. Apart from this, the representation of women in the assemblies of 10 states is less than 10 percent, these include Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Odisha, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura and Puducherry are included.

Women’s bill was last presented in 2008

Before the year 2008, this bill was also introduced in 1996, 1998 and 1999. A Joint Parliamentary Committee under the chairmanship of Geeta Mukherjee had examined the 1996 Bill and made 7 recommendations. Five of these were included in the 2008 bill, including a 15-year reservation period for Anglo Indians and sub-reservation.

This bill also included, if a state has less than three Lok Sabha seats, reservation in the Delhi Assembly and at least one-third reservation. Two recommendations of the committee were not included in the 2008 bill. The first was to reserve seats in the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils and the second was for sub-reservation for OBC women after the Constitution extended reservation to OBCs.

The 2008 bill was referred to the Standing Committee on Law and Justice, but it failed to reach consensus in its final report. The committee recommended that the bill be passed in Parliament and brought into action without any delay.

Two SP members had protested

Two members of the committee, Virendra Bhatia and Shailendra Kumar, who were from the Samajwadi Party, dissented, saying that they were not against providing reservation to women, but disagreed with the way the bill was drafted. . He recommended that every political party should distribute 20 percent of its tickets to women, the reservation should not exceed 20 percent.

There should be a quota for OBC and minority women. The Standing Committee also considered other ways to increase representation. This committee had received a suggestion to nominate some percentage of seats for political parties to be reserved for women, but it felt that the parties could compensate by nominating women on the seats where there was a possibility of loss. Are.

How is reservation in Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils?

The committee concluded that the issue of reservation in the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils should be thoroughly examined as the upper houses play an equally important role under the Constitution. On the issue of reservation for OBC women, the committee said that “at the present time of the passage of the Bill, all other issues can be considered by the Government at an appropriate time without any further delay.” In 2008, this bill was opposed by SP, RJD and JDU, although the parties have publicly expressed their support for it. To consider and pass this bill, the government will need two-thirds support in each house of Parliament.