Ahmedabad, July 9 Shraddha Rajput, Vice President, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Gujarat state Mahila Morcha says that the Gujarat BJP has the "strongest" and "largest" women wing in the country.
Rajput shared to that there are six other organisations working along with the BJP Mahila Morcha.
The BJP is the only party that gives 33 per cent reservation to women in the party, she said.
"We follow the programmes and campaigns initiated by the national women wing. Apart from this we are also free to work on our own innovative ideas... We especially work for women empowerment and our task is to spread word about all the government schemes for girls and women," Rajput elaborated.
Talking about women wings initiatives, she said, "Then Chief Minister and now Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiated Sachi Mandals in Gujarat, women also play an important role in cooperatives and the dairy industry in the state. He also started 'beti vadhaao, beti padhao' campaign with kanya praveshotsav in primary schools. Similarly, former Chief Minister Anandiben Patel introduced 50 per cent reservation for women at village and taluka level administration. All these initiatives succeeded throughout the country."
Further, talking about the women reservation tradition in the party, she said, "All the women have to attend a workshop before joining the Mahila Morcha, we are taught the party's constitution. We learned there that the credit for this 33 per cent women reservation goes to one of the Jan Sangh founders Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia. She insisted on this reservation so that women come out and participate in active politics."
"If we talk about the women wings' role in state or national level leadership then Anandiben Patel, Bhavnaben Dave, Jyoti Pandya, Sushma Swaraj ji has forever been an inspiration for us, Minakshi Lekhi, Smriti Irani, Nirmala Sitaraman , all of them worked for the women wing. The BJP has always given importance to the women wing," Rajput added.
"It's not that everything is good for women in Gujarat, even they have issues. They consider us (the women wing) as part of their families. They share their problems with us, and we try to bring solutions for their problems. We have initiated a 'suposhan' campaign. All the MLAs and party workers have adopted malnourished children who are registered with us, so that they can be provided with good food. There are many children who have moved up from red level to yellow level now. We work for women's menstrual hygiene. Our programmes are not elections centric, we work throughout the year," she asserted.
Talking about women's socio-economic role in the state, Rajput, who is also the party's spokesperson, said, "Gujarat has always been a revolutionary state. We can see the maximum number of women in all the economical fields in the state. Women employment ratio has been increased along with decreased school drop out ratio. Maximum number of women have bank accounts. Women are coming forward, and the government is working to provide them a secured support system."
About her own journey, she shares, "With no political background, I joined the BJP as party worker. I did my master's in public health after my medical studies. At that time when Modiji was our Chief Minister, I seen his work closely. I had respect for the BJP ideology and gradually, I reached to this stage."
"We have 2,27,36,865 women voters, and the voting ratio increases by 5 to 10 per cent in every election. We are working for the enrolment of future voters who are going to be 18 by the time of the elections (Assembly polls). We are organising a young gen campaign for 18 to 35 age group women. We will organise 'Mahila Sammelans' in various villages and districts, we will do one-to-one interactions with prominent women in the state so that we can realise their real issues at the social level. We are going to work on larger perspectives," Rajput noted.
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