Punjab news: Congress to field women on 33% of Assembly seats, says Raja Warring

Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring on Monday said the party would field women candidates on 33 per cent of the seats in the state Assembly poll next year.

Commenting on the opposition to the women reservation Bill, which was defeated in Lok Sabha recently, he said the Congress wasn’t against the legislation but the intent with which it was introduced.

The BJP-led Centre tried to stealthily bring in the delimitation Bill in the guise of women reservation Bill,” he said, adding that the quota for women in Assemblies and Parliament had already been approved in 2023.

Accompanied by Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and All-India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary Kuljeet Singh Nagra, Warring told reporters that it was former PM Rajiv Gandhi, whose government in 1989 introduced 33 per cent reservation for women in rural and urban local bodies.

He said due to it, about 40 per cent members in local bodies across the country were women.

Congress Working Committee (CWC) member and former MP Vijay Inder Singla, who was in Bathinda, said the BJP was attempting to present a delimitation and seat expansion exercise as a measure for women empowerment. He reiterated that the 131st Constitutional Amendment Bill defeated recently was rightly opposed by the Congress and its allies.

Singla said the delimitation Bill in its current shape would reduce the proportionate share of states like Punjab and increase that of states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in Parliament.

He said while the share of UP, Bihar and Rajasthan would increase by 1.7 per cent, 1.2 per cent and 1 per cent, respectively, the share of Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal would decrease by 0.3 per cent, 1 per cent, 1 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively.

BJP tried to influence voters in poll-bound states, says MP

Fatehgarh Sahib MP Amar Singh accused the BJP-led Centre of using the women reservation issue as a “political tool” to push its larger agenda of delimitation and long-term political dominance. He said the reservation for women in Assemblies and Parliament had already been passed in 2023, yet the BJP continued to raise the issue to target Opposition parties and influence voters, particularly in poll-bound states like West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

“Despite lacking the required two-thirds majority for further constitutional changes, the BJP is attempting to create a narrative that the Opposition is anti-women,” he alleged.