Day after Parliament passed the Women’s Reservation Bill, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that he “regrets” that OBC quota was not provided in the Bill during the Congress’ rule 13 years ago.
“100% regret hai. This should have been done then. We will get this done..,” Congress MP Rahul Gandhi rued when asked if he holds any regrets on the decision made by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in 2010.
After 11 hours of debate, the Rajya Sabha on Thursday passed the Women’s Reservation Bill that will reserve one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women. The Bill now awaits the President’s assent to become an Act.
Unlike the Lok Sabha, where two of the 456 MPs present in the House voted against the Bill dubbed ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’, all the 214 lawmakers present in the Rajya Sabha voted in its favour on Thursday.
The reservation will come into effect only after the completion of the census and delimitation exercises.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Gandhi targeted the Centre over the delay in the implementation of the Bill, and alleged that citing delimitation and census as reasons to defer it is a “diversionary tactic”.
The Congress leader said implementation is not a complicated matter, but the “government doesn’t want to do that. The government has presented this before the country but it will be implemented 10 years from now. Nobody knows if this will even be implemented. This is a diversionary tactic”, he said.
He also questions why were there only three OBC officials in the government of India.
“As the Prime Minister keeps saying he is an OBC leader, I want him to explain, why only three OBCs are in the government of India? And why the OBC community which is the backbone of this country is responsible for only 5% of the budget?” Gandhi asked, adding the ministers have not been able to answer this question.
“In fact, when I said this, I saw in the face the panic. because this is what they are trying to distract India from,” the Wayanad MP added.
