The Hindu : National : UPA blamed for delay on women's reservation Bill

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Sunday, Dec 04, 2005

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UPA blamed for delay on women's reservation Bill

Special Correspondent

BJP would have got the Bill passed: Sushma Swaraj

JAIPUR: The Bharatiya Janata Party's national women's convention, titled "matrushakti sammelan" here on Saturday harped on the pending Women's Reservation Bill and blamed the ruling United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre for the delay in its passage.

The women in the country continued to be second-class citizens and the BJP would support the Bill in Parliament when it is introduced, the speakers at the convention maintained.

Sonia blamed

The one-day convention listed the failures of the UPA Government in a political resolution but the speeches were mostly targeted at the Congress president Sonia Gandhi and on the Women's Reservation Bill.

However, BJP president L.K.Advani who addressed the gathering kept political themes out of his speech and confined himself to the role of women in familial/social life.

"Those who opposed the Bill when it was introduced in Parliament in the past are in UPA now,'' former BJP president Venkaiah Naidu said in his address.

"There should be reservation for women. The party will support it in Parliament,'' he said. "In 18 months in power the UPA could not do anything about the Bill,'' he noted.

`UPA cheated women'

The UPA Government has cheated women by not passing the Reservation Bill. Had it been with the BJP-led Government at the Centre, women would have got 33 per cent reservation in the Lok Sabha and the Assemblies by now,'' senior party leader Sushma Swaraj asserted.

Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav, who opposed the Bill in the past were with the UPA now. "Sonia Gandhi has been heading the UPA for the past one-year-and-a-half. Not even the draft of the proposed new Bill on reservation is ready yet,'' she charged.

While Mahila Morcha president Karuna Shukla also blamed Sonia Gandhi for the delay in the enactment of the Women's Reservation Bill, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje held the Congress party responsible for dividing families, communities and religionists.

Ms.Raje spoke at length about the achievement of her Government in Rajasthan, which is going to complete two years in office next week.

`Inner contradictions'

The political resolution, among other things, highlighted the `'inner contradictions'' in the UPA. The UPA Government, brought together to protect vested interests could have been better called `'Ulta Pulta"(topsy turvey) Alliance, it said.

Volcker report

The exposures of the Volcker Committee report had proved that the Congress party and the Gandhi family had intrinsic link to corruption, it said.

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