The historic Women Reservation Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha after the Lok Sabha. Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of the Parliament, on Thursday passed the Women’s Reservation Bill with all the 215 members voting in favour of the bill.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also present in the House during the voting on ‘ Nari Shakti Vandan Bill-2023′ bill and while participating in the discussion, he appealed to everyone to vote unanimously in favor of the bill.
This bill was passed by the Lok Sabha a day earlier. 454 votes were cast in support of the bill, while only 2 votes were cast against it.
Asaduddin Owaisi and his party AIMIM MP had voted against the bill .
‘After the bill becomes law, 33% seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies will be reserved for women.
A day earlier, during the discussion in the Lok Sabha on the Women Reservation Bill, Home Minister Amit Shah had said that after the elections, there will be census and then delimitation. After this the bill will be implemented and very soon the time will come when one third of the mothers and sisters will be in the House.
He had said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has honored women power by bringing the Women’s Reservation Bill. It is expected that this bill will be implemented in the year 2029.
Opposition parties demanded in the Rajya Sabha that this proposed law should be implemented before the census and delimitation.
Members of the opposition parties also claimed that the government brought this bill for electoral gains, whereas one will have to wait a long time to avail its benefits.
Congress member KC Venugopal said that this government had come to power in 2014 itself and had also promised to implement women’s reservation.
He questioned who stopped the government from bringing this bill for so long.
He sarcastically asked whether the government was waiting for the construction of a new Parliament building or was there any architectural issue in it.
Earlier, Congress member Ranjit Ranjan started the discussion on the bill. Taking aim at the government, Ranjan said that he sees a conspiracy behind this bill, because the government has brought it after nine and a half years.
He asked why there was a need for a special session of Parliament for this bill? He said that the aim of the government is to garner headlines through this bill also. Terming this bill as an election agenda, he asked whether the government is showing ‘jhunjhuna’ (a children’s toy) through it.
After the law is made, the number of women members in the 543-member Lok Sabha will increase from the current 82 to 181. Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said that currently a provision for reservation has been made in the bill for 15 years and the Parliament will have the right to extend it.
The Union Minister clarified that there will be reservation for Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe in the reserved seats for women also.
The Women’s Reservation Bill has a provision to reserve 33 percent seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
According to the bill, one-third of the total number of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) will be reserved for women from those groups.
The bill proposes that reserved seats should be rotated after every general election.
