Women's Reservation Bill: Why Asaduddin Owaisi opposed the legislation

The Women’s Reservation Bill cleared its first legislative wall in the Lok Sabha, receiving 454 votes in favour and two votes against. All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi and his party MP Imtiaz Jaleel were the only two who voted against the Bill, which is scheduled to be passed in Rajya Sabha today. But why? Reservation to benefit ‘savarna women’ AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi cited a flaw in equal representation and opposed the Women’s Reservation Bill, claiming it would provide reservation solely to “savarna women,” and questioned why OBC and Muslim women, who have even less representation in Parliament, are not given any quota. “I oppose this legislation…. The justification that is being given for the bill is that more women will get elected to Parliament. If that is the justification, why that justification is not being extended to the OBC and Muslim women whose representation in this august House is minimal,” Owaisi said. “We know Muslim women are seven per cent of the population, but in this Lok Sabha their representation stands at only 0.7 per cent,” he said. Women’s Reservation Bill: Why 33% quotas for women won’t be a reality until 2029 Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal introduced the Constitution amendment bill which seeks to reserve 33 per cent seats in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies for women in the Lower House of Parliament on Wednesday. According to the bill, it will come into effect after the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies which will be carried out after the completion of the next population census. [caption id=“attachment_13149122” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi speaks in the Lok Sabha during the special session of the Parliament, in New Delhi. PTI[/caption] Speaking on the bill, Owaisi said, “This Modi government wants to increase representation for savarna women. They don’t want representation for OBC women and Muslim women. There have been 690 women MPs elected to Lok Sabha and only 25 of them have come from the Muslim community.” “I hear (that) reservation cannot be given on religious grounds? What is the 1950 presidential order? You are deceiving Muslim women by denying them quota within this reservation,” he said. The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order of 1950 recognised only Hindus as SCs. Amendments were done in 1956 and 1990 to include Sikh Dalits, and later Buddhist Dalits. **Also Read: Women's Reservation Bill: Which countries have quotas for women?** Owaisi said Muslim women face dual discrimination and accused the ruling BJP of denying Muslim and OBC women their due share. “This bill will deny OBCs their fair share. It will close the door on Muslim representation,” he said. He alleged that the bill was a “deception bill” and referred to the grant of remission to the convicts in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape case in Gujarat. Reservation ‘incomplete’ This was the first time the women’s quota measure was presented to a vote in Lok Sabha, and it passed with a two-thirds majority. While the Opposition parties uniformly backed it, they had demanded that OBC sub-quotas be included in the Bill. **Also Read: Women's Reservation Bill in Lok Sabha: A look at its contentious history** Pushing for an OBC quota in the Women’s Reservation Bill, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the move was “incomplete” as it lacks a quota for the community. “This discussion is about women being a group of people of India and the OBCs being another group of people of India. The OBCs, who number a huge percentage, control and define five per cent of India’s budget. This is an insult and a shame to the OBC community,” Rahul said, reports India Today. [caption id=“attachment_13149132” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Pushing for an OBC quota in the women’s reservation bill, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the move was “incomplete” as it lacks a quota for the community. File image/PTI[/caption] He also pushed for the caste census data to be released. Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi, as she led her party in the debate on the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday said that the government must ensure that the 33 per cent quota for women in the legislative bodies includes reservation for those belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Castes. Mayawati, the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party, has also called for a separate quota for women from OBC, as well as the demand that, given the number of women, they receive 50 per cent reservation rather than 33 per cent. Other political parties including Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) have also echoed the move for providing sub quota for women from OBC section. Speaking to News18, JMM MP Mahua Manjhi said reservation without considering women from the backward class fails the purpose. “Any reservation for women mostly benefits upper caste females as they are more powerful financially or are wives of influential men. Those who are left behind are women from the ST, SC and OBC communities. If there is a provision to give reservation to these women in the bill, it would be much better,” she said. Demand for OBC quota The demand that the reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabhas include a sub-quota for women from the OBCs has been accompanying the proposed legislation since its introduction in Parliament in 1996. After the Constitution called for reservation for OBCs, a joint parliamentary committee chaired by Geeta Mukherjee analysed the 1996 law and offered certain recommendations, one of which was to have a sub-quota for women belonging to OBCs, as per a report in The Week. A similar Bill was enacted by Rajya Sabha over 13 years ago, however the legislation failed to pass through Lok Sabha due to significant opposition from SP and RJD over the lack of quota within quota for OBC women. With inputs from PTI