Women's reservation not my domestic problem, it concerns 70 cr women folk: BRS leader K Kavitha

Hyderabad: Dismissing opposition's remarks on allottment of tickets to women in the forthcoming Assembly elections by the ruling BRS, MLC K Kavitha on Wednesday said the women's reservation issue was not her domestic problem but concerns 70 crore female folk in the country.

Addressing reporters here, she slammed both the Congress and the BJP, saying both parties have ignored the Women Reservation Bill, which though passed in the Rajya Sabha in 2010, has yet to be cleared by the Lok Sabha despite figuring in the BJP’s election manifesto.

Union Minister and state BJP president G Kishan Reddy had attacked Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao-led BRS for not giving 33 per cent reservation to women in distribution of tickets for the coming Assembly polls.

In March this year, Kavitha held a hunger-dharna in the national capital on the women reservation issue.

"What I request from every political party is that this is not my domestic problem. This is a women's problem. This is a problem of 70 crore women in the country… We proudly say that women are going into space also. But if you look at our Parliament, there were only 4.5 per cent of women representatives, and now there are 12.5 per cent. The achievement we made in 75 years is just an 8 per cent improvement," she said.

Attacking the past and present Congress and BJP regimes at the Centre, she said there was only one woman cabinet minister in the cabinet of former PM Jawaharlal Nehru, and presently there are just two members in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

She sought to know whether the country should be happy that there was an increase of 50 per cent in women's representation in the cabinet or be unhappy as it is just two.

Pointing to the "sincerity" of the NDA government, she said no draft bill has been prepared by the Centre on women's reservation and no discussions held with other parties.

"People are observing all this. Women will teach them a lesson," she said.

Kavitha said even after 75 years of independence, Manipur now has two women legislators for the first time.

According to the BRS leader, the country currently has 514 lakh women public representatives, thanks to the laws brought by the respective state governments.

Claiming that the BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh dispensation is yet to bring a law on women's reservations, she said recently another saffron party-ruled state, Haryana, brought out a legislation mandating that 10th class is the minimum education qualification for anyone to contest elections.

She said such laws would become barriers for women wanting to actively participate in polls.

Exuding confidence that KCR was going to become CM for the third time, the BRS MLC said she and other leaders, will hold a massive dharna in Delhi during the winter session of the parliament and would invite Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Vadra, and Union Minister Smriti Irani.