Union home minister Amit Shah on Tuesday intervened in the speech of leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, saying that he had made two factually incorrect statements in the House on the Women’s Reservation Bill and asked the latter to withdraw his statement or bring forth evidence and present it on the table in the House.
Chowdhury, during the parliament special session on Tuesday, said the women’s reservation bill was passed in the Lok Sabha and he also added that the bill introduced by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was still pending in the Lower House.
Chowdhury said, “Different prime ministers such as Rajiv Gandhi, PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh introduced the bill. On some occasions the bill was passed by Rajya Sabha but not in the Lok Sabha. Sometimes it was passed in the Lok Sabha but was not cleared in the Rajya Sabha. The bill that was brought during former PM Dr Manmohan Singh’s tenure is still alive. It was passed by the Rajya Sabha”
He added that the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in its meeting had passed a resolution that the bill must be cleared and former Congress President Sonia Gandhi had also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the pending bill and its importance.
To this, Shah immediately intervened and told the House that Chowdhury had made two factually incorrect statements.
“Two factually incorrect statements were made by Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. He must withdraw his statement or bring forth evidence and present it on the table in the House. He said women’s reservation bill was passed in the Lok Sabha, which is wrong as it was never passed. He also said the old bill is still in the Lok Sabha. I want to say that the bill has lapsed after the term of the Lok Sabha lapsed in 2014,” Shah told the House.
His statement came at a time when the Congress has sought to take credit for the bill after the Union Cabinet cleared it on Monday. On Tuesday morning, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi had called the bill “ours”.
The bill seeks to reserve 33 per cent of the seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
The 128th Amendment Bill 2023 says, “Seats shall be reserved for women in the House of the People. As nearly as may be, one-third of the total number of seats reserved under clause (2) of Article 330 shall be reserved for women belonging to the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes.”
“As nearly as may be, one-third (including the number of seats reserved for women belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) of the total number of seats to be filled by direct election to the House of the People shall be reserved for women,” it adds.
On the issue of reserving seats for women in the state assemblies, the legislation says that one-third of the total number of seats will be reserved for women from SC/ST category.
The bill states that rotation of seats reserved for women in Lok Sabha, state assemblies and Delhi assembly shall take effect after each subsequent delimitation exercise “as the Parliament by law may determine”.
