Lucknow, Sep 20 Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Wednesday accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of misleading people on the Women Reservation Bill and said that this bill has not been brought with the intention of giving reservation to women but to lure the women ahead of the upcoming elections.
In a statement issued here, the BSP supremo said, “I consider it very important to mention here that under this amendment census will be conducted in the country only after this Women Reservation Bill is passed in the Parliament.”
She said that in that the this bill will be passed, but will not be implemented immediately because before that census will be conducted in the country and when its is completed, only after that the delimitation of Lok Sabha and State Assemblies will be done again in the entire country and only after that this amendment bill related to women’s reservation will be implemented.
Mayawati said, “It is not hidden from anyone that it takes many years to conduct a fresh census across the country. The last census was published in 2011, after which the census has not been conducted again till date.”
She said, “In such a situation after the constitutional amendment, a new census will be carried out, which will take many years and after that work of delimitation will be started in the entire country, which also takes many years and only after this this women’s reservation will be come into force, whereas the limit of the 128th Amendment Bill has been kept at 15 years.”
The BSP supremo said, “From this it is clear that this Constitution Amendment Bill has not actually been brought with the clear intention of giving reservation to women, but with the intention of luring the innocent women with the intention of getting their votes before the upcoming assembly and Lok Sabha elections.”
She said, “If it is not so, then our party also requests the government to either remove these two provisions from this bill or find such measures so that women can soon get the benefit of reservation under this bill.’
Mayawati said, “Along with this, I also appeal to the central government that the reservation given to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes under 33 percent reservation for women should be given in addition to the currently applicable reservation.”
She demanded that a separate reservation quota for the women of OBC categories, who are still quite backward compared to the women of the general categories, should be ensured in this Women’s Reservation Bill.
The BSP supremo said, “Even if the government does not implement my appeal regarding reservation of women of all these categories, including SC, ST and OBC women, then our party will still support the bill, keeping this in mind that the women of all sections of society are still quite backward compared to men in the country. The women of the weaker section are quite backward, but the women of the general category are also quite backward in comparison to the men.”
She said that the truth is that most of the rights the women have received so far were due to the tireless efforts of Baba Saheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar under the Hindu Code Bill, which was not completely implemented by the Congress government at that time and instead was passed in bits and pieces.
Mayawati said, “Not only this, on the issue of giving separate reservation to women of these categories, there was no provision for it in the bill brought by the previous Congress government at the centre, due to which this bill could not be passed at that time, but now for their political benefit the Congress leaders too are advocating for giving separate reservation to the women of these classes.”
She said, “It is clear from this that the intentions of the people of BJP and Congress and company are not completely clear in the matter of giving reservation to the women of the country in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies and these parties are only trying to get their votes under the guise of this. They are doing politics of their own self interest and there is nothing else.”
The BSP supremo said, “Therefore, the women of the country must be cautious of all such parties from which they are not going to gain anything.”
