Prez, V-P call for revival of women’s reservation bill

How can there be empowerment of women without proper representation? It’s unfortunate that we are not being able to ensure 33% representation of women in Parliament. PRANAB MUKHERJEE, President

NEW DELHI: President Pranab Mukherjee and vice-president Hamid Ansari on Saturday made a strong pitch for reviving the women’s reservation bill, saying their higher representation in public office was not possible unless onethird of seats are reserved for them in Parliament and state legislatures.

The government had recently refused to give a time frame in bringing a fresh constitutional amendment bill that seeks to give 33% reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies and insisted that consensus among political parties was needed for its passage.

“How can there be empowerment of women without proper representation?” asked Mukherjee, inaugurating a national conference of women legislators.

“It’s unfortunate that we are not being able to ensure 33% representation of women in Parliament.”

The President said the country has so far not been able to achieve more than 12% representation for women out of the total membership of Parliament.

Ansari asked parties to voluntarily increase the nomination of women candidates in elections till the legislation was enacted.

He said, “Of 1,591 candidates fielded by six national parties in 2014 Lok Sabha elections only 146 were women despite 47% of the total voters being women. This is not very encour aging.”

Regretting inadequate repre sentation of women in parlia mentary committees, he called all political parties to ensure that the women bill is not delayed further.