Saffron party first to make quota a must in internal polls

According to sources in the party,all units had been told to ensure 33 per cent women representation at all levels. But there is an exception: where there aren’t enough women,a committee must have at least one woman. Nevertheless,party leaders claimed things are going to be different after the organisational elections.

“Earlier,it was optional to include women and hence the search for women leaders was not so rigorous. But now when reservation for women is mandatory,everybody will have to follow it,” said a senior leader.

State BJP president Ramapati Ram Tripathi said that zonal committee elections have been completed across the state and,except for a few districts,everywhere 33 per cent of the members elected are women. The others have at least one woman office-bearer. In some places where women have been left out,the party may hold elections again,but “there are not many such committees”,he added.

However,the BJP always had more women holding organisational positions than other parties. In the UP unit,one of the six regional presidents,one of six vice-presidents and one of six secretaries are women. While Lajjarani Garg is the president of the western region,Gulabo Devi is a vice-president and Sarita Bhadauria a state secretary.

Unlike women leaders in other parties,none here have come up because of her father or husband,but have grown over the years. Also,the BJP women wing has been the most active women wing among all parties in the state.

The BJP also has four women mayors in Uttar Pradesh — Damayanti Goel in Ghaziabad,Anjula Singh Mahaur in Agra,Madhu Gujjar in Meerut and Anju Chaudhary in Gorakhpur.

The party has five MLAs — Krishna Raj,Premlata Katiyar,Premlata Verma,Jyotsna Srivastava and Seema Dwivedi. While Maneka Gandhi is the only member of the Lok Sabha,Kusum Rai is the only member of the Rajya Sabha.

Premlata Verma is daughter-in-law of former chief minister Kalyan Singh who has since parted company with the BJP. Kusum Rai also got her Rajya Sabha nomination because of Kalyan Singh’s efforts.