Uttarakhand Congress Demands Immediate Women's Reservation Implementation

In a charged demonstration on Thursday, the Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee demanded the swift enactment of a 33% reservation policy for women in the state assembly. The protest, orchestrated by the party’s state president Ganesh Godiyal, underscored accusations against the ruling BJP government for allegedly postponing the policy by entangling it with the delimitation process.

Notable figures in the protest included senior Congress leaders and former chief minister Harish Rawat, supported by several MLAs and party officials. This demonstration emerges amid heightened political tensions following a Constitution Amendment Bill aimed at reserving 33% of legislative seats for women by 2029 and expanding Lok Sabha seats to 816, which recently failed to achieve a majority vote in the Lok Sabha.

The Congress accused the BJP of subverting the reservation process with a ''pre-planned conspiracy,'' consequently affecting the policy’s implementation. Addressing the media, Harish Rawat criticized the BJP, asserting their deliberate attachment of the women's quota Bill to the unresolved delimitation issue as a ploy to prevent the Bill’s passage, thus shouldering sole blame for the postponement.