“I was very disappointed when I saw that there is no OBC reservation in the bill,” said Uma Bharti.
Bhopal:
Senior BJP leader Uma Bharti on Tuesday said she was disappointed that the bill that reserves 33 percent seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies does not impose quota for women from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she demanded that half of the seats in the women’s quota should be reserved for SC/STs and OBCs and that backward class women from the Muslim community should also be given benefits.
The constitutional amendment bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha by the BJP-led Union government earlier in the day. It is proposed that the reservation will continue for 15 years and there will also be a one-third quota for women within the seats reserved for SC/STs.
“I am happy that the women reservation bill has been introduced, but I feel somewhat dejected as it has come without reservation for OBC women. If we do not ensure reservations for OBC women, their trust in the BJP will be broken,” Ms Bharti, herself a prominent OBC leader of the BJP, told Press Trust of India.
In the letter to Prime Minister Modi, Ms. Bharti said, “The 33 percent reservation for women in the legislature is a special provision. It should be ensured that out of this 33 percent, 50 percent is reserved for women belonging to SC/ST. and OBC communities.” In the Panchayati Raj and local bodies, there is a provision for special reservation for backward class women, she added.
She also demanded that provision should be made for the women belonging to backward classes in the Muslim community as identified by the Mandal Commission.
Uma Bharti further reminded Prime Minister Modi that when a similar bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha (when HD Deve Gowda was Prime Minister), she had immediately stood up to oppose it and demand changes, and that the bill was moved to standing committee was sent.
When the time came to do something for the OBCs, “we came back,” Ms Bharti said while talking to reporters.
‘I had every confidence that the Prime Minister would take care of it. I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister in the morning and remained silent until the bill was introduced.
“I was very disappointed when I saw that there is no OBC reservation in the bill,” she said, adding “I was disappointed because the backward class women had not been given the opportunity.”
On the controversial statements made by DMK leaders on Sanatan Dharma, Uma Bharti said that they belong to a school of thought that (decades ago) initiated a movement in Tamil Nadu to ‘cut off the tuft and wipe off tilak’ (as symbols of Brahminism), but the movement could not stop people from wearing a tuft or wearing tilak or ‘Janeu’ (sacred thread). It also did not deter anyone from going to temples, she added.
“So if Sanatan Dharma has not suffered any harm there, why are they bringing up this debate from a political platform? It is better to leave the issue of Sanatan Dharma to the Shankaracharyas of the country,” Ms Bharti added.
The development agenda set by the Prime Minister in 2014 must be followed, she said, but also defended Prime Minister Modi’s statements on the controversy, stating that he was talking about it because it was a hot topic.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
