‘Mentality' of north India, Parliament still not conducive for women's quota, says Sharad Pawar

President of the Nationalist Congress Party, Sharad Pawar said “Mentality of north India and Parliament still not conducive for women's quota”

Image Credit: ANI; Representational Image

New Delhi: President of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Sharad Pawar, has stated that the "mentality" of north India and Parliament does not appear to be conducive to granting women reservation in the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies. The former Union minister made the remarks on Saturday during an interview with his daughter, Lok Sabha member Supriya Sule, at a programme hosted by the Pune Doctors' Association. He was responding to a question about the Women's Reservation Bill, which aims to reserve 33% of seats in the Lok Sabha and all state legislative assemblies for women but has yet to be passed, and whether this demonstrates that the country is still not mentally prepared to accept women's leadership. Pawar stated that he has been speaking on this issue in Parliament since he was a member of the Congress Lok Sabha.

"The 'mansikta' (mentality) of Parliament, especially of north India, has not been conducive (on this issue). I can recall that when I was a Congress Lok Sabha member, I used to talk about the issue of reservations for women in Parliament. Once after completing my speech, I turned back and saw that majority of MPs from my party got up and left. This means even for people from my party, it was not digestible," Pawar quotes.

The NCP chief stated that all (parties) should continue to work to get the bill passed. "When I was the chief minister of Maharashtra, reservation for women was introduced in local bodies like the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti. It was opposed initially but later people accepted it,” he said.

(With Agencies Inputs)