Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Tuesday said the decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be welcomed once it is taken officially, amid speculation that the women’s reservation bill may be tabled in Parliament.“Whatever decision the Prime Minister takes, it is in the interest of the country. We will welcome the decision once it is taken officially. Let it happen first,” Shinde told reporters after the installation of the Lord Ganesh idol at his official residence Varsha in Mumbai.
AllyouneedtoknowaboutWomenReservationBill
The women's reservation bill seeks to reserve 33 per cent quota in Lok Sabha and state assemblies.
One-third of the seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will be reserved for women from those groups. These reserved seats may be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in the state or union territory.
The last concrete development on the issue was in 2010 when Rajya Sabha passed the bill with marshals escorting out some MPs who opposed the move but the bill lapsed as it could not be passed by Lok Sabha.
In the present Lok Sabha, 78 women members were elected which account for less than 15 per cent of the total strength of 543. In Rajya Sabha too, women's representation is about 14 per cent, according to the data shared by the government with Parliament last December.
Several state assemblies have less than 10 per cent women representation, including Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Odisha, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura and Puducherry.
Bihar, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttrakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi had 10-12 per cent women MLAs, according to the government data of December 2022. Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Jharkhand led the charts with 14.44 per cent, 13.7 per cent and 12.35 per cent women MLAs, respectively.