With Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP vociferously targeting the Opposition for defeating the Constitution amendment Bill proposing the Lok Sabha’s expansion in order to implement women’s quota, there appears to be some pressure in the ruling party itself to ensure one-third representation for women in its organisational bodies.
This comes at a time when newly elected BJP president Nitin Nabin is expected to constitute his team, which will set in motion an organisational revamp in the BJP.
BJP leaders claim no other party provides representation to women as it does. “Apart from the Mahila Morcha, which has its units at the national level and at every state level, one-third of the office bearers at the centre and in every state are women. Even if there are vacancies in some places, those will be filled by women only,” BJP general secretary Arun Singh told The Indian Express.
In his first stint as BJP president, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh constituted a seven-member committee headed by late party leader Sushma Swaraj to explore how women’s representation in the BJP’s organisational set-up could be enhanced. In his presidential address to the national executive meeting in New Delhi in June 2007, Singh said: “The party enjoys a vast support base among women. We are of the opinion that their proper representation in the legislation should be enhanced. For this, the proper representation of women in the party needs to be enhanced. I believe that women deserve 33% reservation in the party organisation.” Besides Swaraj, the committee had Sumitra Mahajan, Najma Heptullah, Kiran Maheshwar, Bal Apte, Kiren Rijiju, and Kishan Reddy as its members.
Later, the panel submitted a report suggesting a substantive increase in women’s representation in the party’s bodies. Pointing out that the constitution of the BJP makes one-third representation of women compulsory in each unit, from the local level to the national, without which the unit will not be lawful, the committee said, “Similarly, the nomination of 12 women out of 80 National Executive Members is compulsory under section 20. But this quantum of reservation at different levels comes to 12% to 15% in all. The National President has desired to escalate it up to 33%. The Committee feels that this escalation in reservation is not only desirable but also essential.”
“Most of our local units, from the booth level, we have 33% women,” claimed a BJP leader tasked with organisational duties.
However, the BJP’s official website states that of the 396 national executive members, only 37, or 9%, are women. In the 12-member parliamentary board, the apex decision-making body, Sudha Yadav is the only woman, while among the 12 national vice presidents, five are women. The BJP has no woman general secretaries — there are seven in total — and among the 11 national secretaries, two are women.
The Swaraj committee, however, noted: “The provision of women reservation cannot be made in cases of State Presidents/Districts Presidents and Mandal Presidents because then the States/Districts/Mandals themselves would have to be reserved to effect the reservation which is impracticable.”
With PM Modi accusing the Opposition of being “mahila virodhi” for voting against the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, there are fresh demands from within the party to increase women’s representation. “Since we are campaigning so intensely, party leadership will be under pressure to ensure that the organisation increases the number of women, including in the top bodies. We have to also see that the BJP provides more than one-third seats to women,” said a senior Rajya Sabha MP.
“We still have not given women adequate representation in the organisation, neither decision-making ones nor in Parliament and Assemblies,” said another MP. Both leaders pointed out that “it would be a point that would draw attention” when Nabin announces his new team.
In contrast, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) has six women among its 37 members, including Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Of the 34 permanent invitees to the CWC, only four are women and there are four women in the 15-member special invitee category, too.
In the current Lok Sabha, the TMC tops the list of women MPs with 39% of their total strength in the House. Both the BJP and the Congress have a similar share of women MPs at 13% and 13.4%, respectively. The BJP, however, had a higher proportion of women candidates (16%) than the Congress (13%). Another big regional party, the DMK, is led by a woman in the Lok Sabha, K Kanimozhi, but only three of its 22 are women (13.6%).
BJP leaders claim no other party provides representation to women as it does. (PTI/File) 
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