Sharmila dares Kavitha on Women’s Bill
PNS|Hyderabad
YSRTP president YS Sharmila shared an online calculator link (https://calculator.net) with BRS MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha requesting the latter to calculate the percentage of women candidates in the BRS list for coming Assembly polls.
Sharmila on Wednesday wrote a strong note to Kavitha, after the latter wrote to her, seeking her support for the Women’s Reservation Bill. She quoted the meagre percentage of women of less than 5 per cent in the BRS list.
The letter reads, “While I acknowledge the receipt of the letter from you, where you sought my support to the Women’s Reservation Bill, I fail to understand how you can take this fight to the national platform, without doing justice to women in Telangana.
In the three successive Assembly elections since the formation of Telangana State, your party did not allocate more than 5% tickets to women. This is a glaring irony that the daughter of a chief minister does not question her father. I think the first step to prove your sincerity on this issue must be towards ensuring more women representation in the Telangana Assembly.”
o Do you realise that in 2014 your party gave tickets to women in just 5% Assembly seats, while you shamefully plunged to a further low in 2018, when women representation was just 4%!
o Why was only one woman, YOU, given a ticket to fight in Lok Sabha elections in 2014? And why did this number not go beyond two, again one among them being YOU, in 2019?
o Why wasn’t there was not even a single woman minister in your father’s first-term rule. How was the state made to function without a full-time Women’s Commission?
o Finally, what makes you press this urgency button now, after whiling away for ages? Is it the upcoming Telangana elections? So, you want to take credit for this?
As a woman, I stand for increased representation of women in the State Assemblies and in Parliament. I at the same time, cannot be a part of your larger political game well-timed to reap electoral benefits. So, win on the home turf first, and then cover the country.
Also sharing the link – https://www.calculator.net (online calculator) that will ease the process of calculation for you.
At the end, I wish to remind you of what Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see”!
