Make inclusion of women in Cabinet must: BJP to Shah

Urges to make amendment in Article 239(5) for city Cabinet

City BJP unit spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor on Monday wrote to Union home minister Amit Shah requesting to consider making amendment in Article 239(5) to make inclusion of a woman minister in the Delhi Cabinet mandatory.

Mr Kapoor clarified that this is his personal opinion and has no relation to his political affiliation.

“It is most unfortunate that the present chief minister has denied participation in governance to women in Delhi in his second consecutive Cabinet. His earlier 2015 to 2020 Cabinet too had no woman member despite the presence of around half a dozen women MLAs in the ruling party. Similarly, in the present Legislative Assembly too, the ruling party has women members,” Mr Kapoor wrote.

There have been only four women ministers in the Delhi government since 1993. The first woman minister was Purnima Sethi in the BJP-led government in the early 1990s.

The BJP government also saw Sushma Swaraj as the chief minister of Delhi for less than two months.

During Sheila Dikshit’s 15 year rule, the city had only two woman ministers — Krishna Tirath and Kiran Walia.

In the AAP government’s first tenure of 49 days in 2013, the only woman minister was Rakhi Birla.

“It is therefore suggested that the Parliament of India amend the Constitution of India’s Article 239(5), which deals with the appointment of ministers on the advice of the chief minister in a way so as to make it mandatory to include at least one woman minister in the Cabinet from amongst the elected woman MLAs of the ruling party. The only case for exception being when the ruling party has no woman MLA,” Mr Kapoor added.