Jaipur, Sep 23: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday advocated for a caste census and asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “afraid” of it as well as demanded the immediate implementation of reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
A bill to reserve one-third of seats in the legislative bodies for women received the parliamentary nod on Thursday as the Rajya Sabha voted unanimously in favour of it.
The 128th Constitution amendment bill, referred to as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, will now require the approval of a majority of state assemblies. It will be implemented after a delimitation exercise to redraw parliamentary and assembly constituencies based on a census which the government has said will be commissioned next year.
The BJP wants the reservation for women to be implemented in “10 years, but we want it today and OBCs (other backward classes) included in it”, Gandhi told a conference of Congress workers here in poll-bound Rajasthan. The bill was passed in a special session of Parliament that began on September 18 and ended on Thursday.
The session, the Congress leader claimed, was called to change the name of India to Bharat, but instead the women’s reservation bill was introduced.
Earlier this month, invitations for a G20 dinner were sent out by President Droupadi Murmu describing her position as ‘President of Bharat’ instead of the customary ‘President of India’, triggering a massive furore with the opposition alleging that the Modi government was planning to drop India and stay with just Bharat as the country’s name.
Gandhi said the women’s reservation bill can be implemented in Parliament and assemblies today itself, but the central government wants to postpone it for 10 years on the pretext of delimitation and a new census. The Congress wants women’s reservation to be implemented today itself, he said.
Demanding a caste census, the former Congress president said, “If we talk about giving participation to OBCs, then it cannot be done without a caste census. So, the prime minister talks about OBCs 24 hours a day. He talks about respecting OBCs. Then why is the prime minister afraid of a caste census?”.
“The prime minister, please tell India in your next speech that the Congress had conducted (PTI)
