india

Updated: Jan 10, 2019 20:36 IST

Telangana Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter and MP Kalvakuntla Kavitha on Thursday pitched for passage of Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament with the same spirit and speed with which the bill on quota for economically backward classes was passed.

Kavitha, who represents Nizamabad parliamentary constituency tweeted: “If the Women Reservation Bill could be passed with the same speed with which the bill on economically weaker sections/general category reservations has been passed in both the houses, our country would be truly progressive. We need more political will behind Reservation for Women.”

If the WomenReservation Bill could be passed with the same speed with which the bill on economically weaker sections/general category reservations has been passed in both the houses, our country would be truly progressive. We need more political will behind Reservation for Women. — Kavitha Kalvakuntla (@RaoKavitha) January 10, 2019

The bill seeking to provide 10% quota to economically backward classes in general category was passed in both the houses of Parliament with overwhelming majority.

The TRS also supported the bill, but insisted that the Centre should also incorporate the clauses in the bill for extending 12% reservations to Muslims under economically and socially backward category, besides enhancing reservations to STs in Telangana to 12%. The amendments proposed by the TRS MPs while passing the bill in Lok Sabha were rejected.

Kavitha has been raising the issue of the passage of women’s reservation bill on every forum for quite some time. At Young Thinkers’ Conference-2018 held recently at Indian School of Business in November last too, Kavitha said the women’s quota was a must as a solution to overcome male dominance in various sectors, including politics.

Pointing out that only 11% of MPs and 9% MLAs in the country were women, she said that the nation needs to introspect about such low participation of women in politics.

She observed that inheritance of political lineage could be countered only through 33% reservation for women in legislatures.

She regretted that despite the best efforts by a woman leader, the erstwhile government could not pass the bill and called for formation of an advocacy group to bring pressure on the government towards achieving this goal.