NewDelhi: Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and guidance of Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah, the 128th constitutional amendment related to women’s reservation, known as the ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Bill-2023,’ was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. It was passed on Wednesday with 454 votes and a two-thirds majority.
Responding to the opposition’s questions on this occasion, Shah clarified, ‘Those whose roots are from India do not consider women weak. Women are more powerful than men in every field.’
In fact, opposition parties had raised concerns that providing reservations to women implied that women were weak. There were also allegations that the bill would be passed in this special session of Parliament, but why couldn’t it be implemented before 2029?
Addressing these concerns Shah said, ‘In the name of women’s reservation, the government has created an election ruckus because reservation cannot be implemented before the census and delimitation process.’
In response to these allegations, senior BJP leader Amit Shah said, ‘Those whose roots are from India do not consider women weak. Women have been given a significant place in the Vedas. With this bill, a long-standing fight for women’s rights has come to an end.
This bill, which will realize Modi’s ‘Women Led Development’ vision, will advance women’s participation in decision-making and policy formulation in the country. To ensure transparency in the 33 percent reservation for women, both the census and delimitation processes are crucial. Therefore, the new government formed after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will initiate the process of census and delimitation.’
This bill will be a significant achievement in the country’s democratic journey. It is ironic that from the Deve Gowda government to the Manmohan Singh government, four attempts were made to pass this bill, but due to political considerations, it was never successful.
This bill, pending for 27 years, has now been passed in the Lok Sabha under Shah’s guidance. The ‘Nari-Shakti Vandan Act,’ which provides 33% reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, received support from most of the parties in the Lok Sabha.
Over the past nine years, PM Modi’s vision and Shah’s policies have demonstrated that women’s empowerment can be a political agenda or a political issue for some parties. For Modi, women’s empowerment is not a political issue but a matter of recognition.
Committed to the safety, respect, and participation of women, Amit Shah believes that ‘where women are public representatives, the benefits of schemes, along with the power of women, reach the last person in the country. Once this bill becomes law, one-third of the seats in Parliament will be reserved for women MPs, marking a milestone in the direction of women’s empowerment.