Modi govt brought women's reservation bill to earn accolades ahead of 2024 LS polls, says Cong leader

Congress leader Rajani Patil on Monday claimed the Narendra Modi government brought the women's reservation bill in Parliament to play the "women's card" ahead of the 2024 general elections. Addressing a press conference here, the Rajya Sabha MP from Maharashtra said the bill will not benefit women because the Centre has added a condition that it will come into effect only after the population census and the delimitation of parliamentary and assembly constituencies.

"Though BJP came to power in 2014, it took them nine years to bring this Bill. They did not pay heed when our leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, through their letters to the PM in 2016 and 2018, respectively, urged him to bring this bill at the earliest," she said.

Now, when elections are approaching and BJP is staring at defeat, they played the women's card by bringing this Bill, claimed the AICC in charge of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.


The Bill was passed in both Houses of Parliament recently with the support of Congress and several other opposition parties.

Patil was here as part of Congress' pan-India exercise to "expose the Modi government" on the issue of women's reservation by holding such conferences in 21 cities on Monday.

"The BJP government has put a condition that it would come into effect after the population census and the delimitation exercise. Why not implement it on the basis of 2011 census? It seems the BJP brought this bill only to get accolades for themselves because there is no word from the government yet about conducting the the next census. Until that happens, there will be no delimitation of seats as well," said Patil.

Reiterating the Congress' stand of conducting a caste census, she demanded OBC as well as SC/ST quota in this 33 per cent reservation.

The senior party leader claimed it was Congress which came up with the idea of increasing participation of women in politics by giving them reservation.

She said past governments under then prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi, HD Deve Gowda and Manmohan Singh had brought this bill between 1989 and 2010 but it could not clear all hurdles.

"In 1989, when Rajiv Gandhi's government brought this Bill, it was defeated in Rajya Sabha by seven votes. BJP leaders including LK Advani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Ram Jethmalani were among those seven RS members who played a role in defeating that bill," she claimed.