'Are women less than cows?': Mahua Moitra slams Modi govt amid debate on women's reservation bill

livemint.com:

Narendra Modi government on Wednesday, wondering if women were considered ‘less than cows’. The remarks came as the Lok Sabha debated the women's reservation bill during a special five-day Parliament session on Wednesday. Moitra noted that the date of implementation remained unclear as the “date of the next census is indeterminate, and the date of the delimitation exercise is doubly indeterminate".

“Are we women less than cows that we need to wait while you count and draw lines? We don't need any more vandanas. Thank you very much. What we need is direct action.

Honourable Prime Minister, this is your time to show us all that Modi hai toh mumkin hai," she said. With the reservation contingent on a census and subsequently a delimitation exercise, the TMC leader said that reservation may not be possible even in 2029. “It is both my pride and my shame as I stand here in India's Parliament speaking on a women's reservation bill.

It is my pride that I belong to the All India Trinamool Congress, a party that sent 37% women among its members to Parliament, but it is my chagrin that I belong to a Lok Sabha that on aggregate has only 15% of its people as women, far below the global average of 26.5% and also below the Asian regional average of 21%," she added. Moitra said that India ranked 140 out of 196 in the Inter Parliamentary Union tables in women's reservations. The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed a bill granting reservation to women on one-third seats in Lok Sabha and state assemblies with near unanimity amid demands from the opposition to extend similar benefits to Other Backward Classes and immediate implementation of the measure before the elections next year.