CHANDIGARH, March 31: Former Lok Sabha Speaker P. A. Sangma has expressed apprehensions over the effective implementation of the 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament in the next few years.Speaking to media persons, here today, Sangma said with not many deserving women in politics, it would take about 10 years for the women reservation to be implemented fully."Unless women are empowered socially and economically, things would not improve and thus the reservation cannot be fully implemented," he said, calling for empowerment of women socially and economically.Sangma said education alone can empower women. He also called upon the Youth Congress workers at the three-day Youth Congress Orientation camp to be aware through education, which will help them in their upliftment.He added that adequate number of deserving women were not available and thus there was a need to focus on women, for which the Congress had not dismantled the Mahila Congress.Sangma said while enrolment of women was on all over the nation, there were many states like J&K, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal and Himachal Pradesh where adequate number of women were not available even for holding various posts in the state Congress units.Referring to the statement of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee rejecting the demand for removal of Fernandes and reinstatement of Bhagwat, Sangma said that the House would take a final decision on this after discussion on the issue, a request for which has already been allowed by the Speaker."We will press for initiating the discussion on the first day of opening of Parliament on April 12 itself", he said, adding that everything would depend on the outcome of the discussion in Parliament.Addressing YC workers, he attacked the present government for failing on various accounts. He called upon professionals to come forward into politics which will help improve the plight of politics in the nation, which was being tainted by corrupt politicians. "If politics in India has to be cleaned up, political parties would have to be more responsible."Regarding the north-east, he said the problem there was more economic than political. He called for integrating the north-east economies with neighbouring countries of north-east. He added that negotiations with Bangladesh were on in this regard, after the Planning Commission accepted this demand, advocated by him for several years now.He also called for developing infrastructure in the north-east and provide more Central Government investment there. The three-day orientation camp of YC workers, organised under the leadership of Indian Youth Congress president Manish Tewari and attended by about 250 delegates from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh concluded today.
