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New Delhi: Responding to Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for ensuring the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill, the BJP on Thursday said she should instead have written to her allies — the RJD and the SP — the two bitter critics of the proposed legislation.
"Rather than writing to the Prime Minister, Sonia Gandhi ought to have written or spoken to her alliance partners like Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav to find out why did they block the Women's Reservation Bill when the UPA was in power," BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao said.
CNN-News18 was the first to report that the Modi government was planning to get the Bill passed in the Lok Sabha ahead of 2019 general elections.
The Bill was cleared by the Rajya Sabha in 2010 during the UPA regime. As part of a larger outreach to women, the Congress had projected it as a victory for its President and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
The Bill aims at reserving one-third of total seats in Parliament and state Assemblies for women.
The Manmohan Singh government, however, could not get the Bill passed in the Lok Sabha in the face of stiff opposition from allies like Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and even Trinamool Congress.
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad and the then Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav had fiercely opposed the bill when the UPA government introduced it in Parliament in 2010. Both the RJD and SP were then supporting the Congress-led government.
Gandhi had on Wednesday written to Modi, urging him to get the Women's Reservation Bill passed in the Lok Sabha by taking advantage of the BJP's majority in the House and also promising her party's support to the legislation.
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