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Monday, Oct 30, 2006
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Allies have to be convinced: Sonia

Arunkumar Bhatt

"Women's Bill should be speeded up"

Chakoor (Maharashtra): Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi confessed here on Sunday that she had to convince not only the allies but also some leaders within her party about the reservation for women in Parliament and in legislative bodies.

Ms. Gandhi said she had been asked to speed up the process for getting reservation for women. "I have been doing it well but I have to convince not only Mr. Lalu Prasad, Mr. Dayanidhi Maran and Mr. Ramdoss but also some colleagues in our own party and you may have realised who I mean."

The Congress president was addressing a rally of party workers here, the hometown of Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil. Chakoor is in Latur, the home district of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

She was responding to the demand for her active support made by the chairperson of the Social Welfare Board Rajni Patil.

The latter had reminded Ms. Gandhi that about a million women were occupying elective seats in the panchayats of the country because of the measures taken by Rajiv Gandhi and now she had to take the initiative of speed up the machinery of the ruling alliance so that women got empowered.

Maharashtra Congress president Prabha Rau and AICC general secretary in-charge of the State Margaret Alva attended the rally.

Later, Ms. Gandhi addressed a farmers' rally. At both rallies local and State leaders raised the question of growing suicides of farmers, particularly cotton growers. Mr. Deshmukh said that as against the national figure of 40 per cent, only 16 per cent farmland in Maharashtra was irrigated and that meant about 85 per cent farming was rainfed.

He said the State Government was trying to speed up construction of the projects on hand but even those efforts would raise the level of irrigation to only 25 per cent, leaving 75 per cent farming to the mercy of the monsoon.

Mr. Deshmukh said the State's package of Rs. 2,500 crore and the Central package of Rs. 3,500 crores for the farmers did not have any magic wand to stop the farmers' suicides. Ms. Gandhi said she felt miserable about farmers' suicides and was perturbed and therefore stress was laid on farmers' problems at the Nainital conclave of party Chief Ministers last month.

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