Siddu dubs Modi women’s quota Bill ‘ultimate fraud’

Maqsood Maniyar | NT

Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday attempted to take the wind out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s sails by branding his quota Bill for the fairer sex the “ultimate fraud”.

The CM reasoned that by making the implementation of the Act was unnecessarily being postponed to 2029, keeping in mind the decennial census and the delimitation of Lok Sabha seats.

He said that there was a real fear that the Act would be pushed 15 years or even more. The Bill has cleared both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and President Draupadi Murmu’s assent is awaited.

Siddaramaiah made the remarks at a dialogue on the women’s Bill held in Bengaluru on Saturday. He had made similarly critical comments about the Bill in the past, pointing out that there had been no sub-category for Other Backward Classes (OBC) women within the quota for the fairer sex.

“Under Narendra Modi, the Central government has fixed 15 years of time for women's reservation to come into force. The validity of the Act is 15 years from the date of its enactment. That means the act would be implemented but it has 15 more years to go before becoming a reality. Moreover, they have set up two obstacles namely census and delimitation. It will take 15 years to overcome these obstacles. Therefore the life span of this Bill would expire before its implementation. This is the ultimate fraud done to women,” he said.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his speech that ‘God had sent me to implement reservation for women’, but this is a fraud done to women. Did God send you to defraud women?” he asked, much to the amusement of the crowd.

Siddaramaiah, unwilling to concede anything to the Union government, pointed out that the women’s Bill was originally floated by the Congress and that they had set aside a quota of 50 per cent for the fairer sex rather than the 33 per cent mandated by the legislation drafted by the ruling BJP.

Mysore University professor of political science Muzaffar Assadi presided over the programme and senior Advocate Ravi Varma Kumar gave a presentation on the subject.

MLA Nayana Motamma, lawyer Ashwini Obalesh, leaders of Backward Classes Federation KM Ramachandrappa, Dalit activist Mavalli Shankar, lawyer N Anantha Naik, BT Lalitha Naik and Chukki Nanjundaswamy were present on the occasion.