Siddaramaiah opposes Women’s Reservation Bill in centre, displaying hypocrisy

Siddaramaiah, the chief minister of Karnataka, criticised the BJP-led federal government on Saturday for the roadblocks thrown in the way of the Women’s Reservation Bill. He claimed that the BJP’s ‘hypocrisy’ was demonstrated by the ‘barriers’ of the census, delimitation, and longevity.

The Women’s Reservation Bill was approved by the Parliament on Thursday, but it won’t go into effect until after the subsequent delimitation process, which will happen after the first census that will be done after 2026. Furthermore, 15 years after it was implemented, the system of reserving seats for women would be abolished.

The bill requires that 33% of seats in the Delhi assembly, state legislatures, and the Lok Sabha be reserved for women.

Siddaramaiah claimed during a seminar on ‘Women’s Reservation’ that if the BJP government had ‘sincerely’ wished to grant reservations to women, it would not have erected barriers in the way of doing so.

‘The central government fixed an expiration date of 15 years for the Women’s Reservation Bill. The validity of the Act is 15 years from the date of its enactment. That means now the act has only 15 more years to live. On the other hand, they put two obstacles, namely census and delimitation. It will take 15 years to overcome these obstacles. So this bill will expire before its implementation. This is the biggest fraud done to women,’ said the Karnataka Chief Minister.

After declaring that he was selected by God to pass the bill, he attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that he had deceived women. In his speech, PM Modi said that ‘God has sent me to implement reservations for women,’ while Siddaramaiah claimed that the women had been duped. He made fun of the prime minister by joking that God had sent him to trick women.

According to Siddaramaiah, the Bill’s implementation won’t happen in 2024 or 2029. Even in 2034, it won’t be in effect. The Act’s intent would have been fulfilled by that point, he continued.

The Karnataka chief minister asserted that the Congress designed the legislation and has always supported the allocation of seats to women. ‘I fully agree that the Women’s Reservation Bill’s provision for reservations for women from lower socioeconomic strata should be implemented. I firmly favour a 50% reservation in addition to the proposed 33%,’ he continued.

He urged people not to ‘falsely believe that the Women’s Reservation Bill has been implemented and give applause.’