U’khand: Clamour grows in parties for 30% tickets to women

Women members of all parties in Uttarakhand clamour for tickets for at least 30% of the 70 assembly seats, a demand male leaders are not ready to accept.

Leaders of the Congress, BJP, and fringe parties such as the Uttarkhand Kranti Dal and the Bahujan Samaj Party admit that women, who constitute 52% of the state’s population, deserve to be adequately represented in the assembly. They recognise women as the backbone of the state’s economy and their role in the statehood agitation.

The leaders, however, say parties can’t afford to ignore the winnability criterion while giving tickets. Women workers refuse to buy the logic.

“These leaders of male-dominated parties, including the party I belong to, use women political workers to campaign for them so that they are able to win elections,” said Sushila Baluni, a statehood activist and a member of the BJP’s state executive. “When it comes to distributing tickets among women workers, they ignore us because they don’t want to share power with us.”

Baluni appreciates 30% reservation to women in the BJP’s organisational wing and 50% quota given by the previous BJP government in panchayat bodies.

“But our male leaders ignore us when it comes to sharing power with us in the state government or at the Centre, which reflects their insecurity,” she said.

Baluni said a delegation of women leaders of the state BJP would soon meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to press for passage of the Bill stipulating 30% reservation for women in the assembly and Lok Sabha.

“The way women successfully led the statehood agitation and considering their contribution to the state’s economy, they deserve at least 30% reservation in the assembly and Parliament,” said Kanchan Thakur, a state BJP office-bearer.

“It is an irony that political power belies women in a state that they fought for and have been nurturing,” state Congress spokesperson Mamta Joshi said, adding that her party doesn’t have even half-a-dozen women legislators in the assembly.

Jaya Bisht, the vice-president of the ruling party’s state unit, said that if women were adequately represented in the assembly, they would help resolve problems facing the hill women, such as lack of education and unemployment.