BJP holding back biggest pol reform: Mahila Cong chief on Women's Reservation Bill

The Congress's women's wing chief on Sunday hit out at the BJP over the Women's Reservation Bill issue, alleging that the ruling party's "lack of conviction" was holding back the biggest social and political reform that India awaits.

All India Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev also claimed that women in the BJP had no voice with not a single woman BJP MP or MLA speaking out against the recent incidents of rape.

The (Women's Reservation) Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha with the support of the BJP and other parties. Now, the BJP has the numbers in the Lok Sabha, which we did not in 2009 to 2014, she told PTI in an interview.

The BJP manifesto also expressly commits to it, but the ruling party has done nothing to revive the bill, the MP from Assam's Silchar said.

"The Congress president (Rahul Gandhi) has agreed to support reservation, so has the TMC (Trinamool Congress), DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) and many other parties.

"It is only the lack of conviction of the BJP that is holding back the biggest social and political reform that India awaits," Dev alleged.

Referring to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) that had expressed its opposition to the bill, the BJP has slammed the opposition party of adopting "double standards" on the matter by being in alliance with those opposed to the bill,
Asked what were the key women's issues the Congress would give priority in its manifesto for the 2019 polls, Dev, who was recently named in the manifesto committee set up by Gandhi, said, It will be a people's manifesto."