Bhopal:

Senior BJP leader Uma Bharti on Tuesday said she was disappointed that the bill reserving 33 per cent seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies does not carve out a quota for women from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she demanded that half the seats in the women’s quota be reserved for SC/STs and OBCs, and backward class women from the Muslim community should also get a benefit.

The constitutional amendment bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha by the BJP-led Union government earlier in the day. It proposes that the reservation will continue for 15 years and there will be one-third quota for women also within the seats reserved for SC/STs.

“I am happy that the women’s reservation bill was introduced, but I am feeling somewhat dejected because it has come without reservation for OBC women. If we do not ensure reservation for OBC women, then their faith in the BJP will be broken,” Ms Bharti, herself a prominent OBC leader of the BJP, told Press Trust of India.

In the letter to PM Modi, Ms Bharti said, “The 33 per cent reservation for women in legislature is a special provision. It should be ensured that out of this 33 per cent, 50 per cent is reserved for women belonging to SC/ST and OBC communities.” In the Panchayati Raj and local bodies there is a provision for special reservation for the backward class women, she added.

She also demanded that there be a provision for the women belonging to backward classes in the Muslim community, as identified by the Mandal Commission.

Uma Bharti further reminded PM Modi that when a similar bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha (when HD Deve Gowda was prime minister) she had stood up immediately to oppose it and demand changes, and the bill was sent to a standing committee.

When the time came for doing something for the OBCs, “we backtracked,” Ms Bharti said, talking to reporters.

“I was confident that the prime minister will take care of it. I wrote a letter in the morning to the PM and maintained silence till the bill was introduced.

“I got very disappointed on seeing that there is no OBC reservation in the bill,” she said, adding “I got disappointed as the chance which the backward class women were supposed to get has not been given to them.”

On the controversial statements made by DMK leaders about Sanatan Dharma, Uma Bharti said they belong to a school of thought which launched a movement in Tamil Nadu (decades ago) to “cut the tuft and wipe off tilak” (as symbols of Brahminism) but the movement could not stop people from sporting a tuft or wearing tilak or ‘Janeu’ (sacred thread). Nor did it stop anyone from going to temples, she added.

“So when Sanatan Dharma has not suffered any damage there, why are they raising this debate from a political platform? Better leave the issue of Sanatan Dharma to the Shankaracharyas of the country,” Ms Bharti added.

The agenda of development which the prime minister laid out in 2014 should be followed, she said, but also defended PM Modi’s statements on the controversy, stating that he spoke on it because it was a current issue.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Bhopal:

Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and the BJP’s senior leader Uma Bharti was overlooked by the party for the Jan Ashirwad Yatra, which was flagged off by party chief JP Nadda today. “May be they (the BJP leaders) are nervous that if I’m there, then entire public attention will be on me,” said the 64-year-old. “If Jyotiraditya Scindia helped them form the government (in 2020), even I helped them form a bigger majority government (in 2003),” Uma Bharti said.

“He (Scindia) is loved by me as a nephew, but at least I was worthy of being invited to the Yatra launch, even though I wouldn’t have gone there. But I’ll still campaign for the BJP and solicit votes for the party in the coming polls,” added the firebrand leader, once known to be close to party veteran LK Advani.

The BJP is yet to comment on the omission. But the state’s Opposition Congress said it was a clear sign that Ms Bharti, one of the frontal leaders of Ram Temple movement which brought the BJP to limelight, is being sidelined.

Congress leader Randeep Surjewala — who was in Bhopal today said that BJP “insults its leaders”.

“The party sidelined former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani, retired Murli Manohar Joshi… In our culture, even God does not forgive the one who does not respect elders,” he told reporters when asked about the matter.

In 2003, Uma Bharti had ended the rule of the Congress government headed by Digvijaya Singh in Madhya Pradesh by a three-fourths majority. But in 2005, she was expelled from the party for indiscipline and taken back only in 2011.

In 2013, appointed one of the 13 vice-presidents to steer the party through the Lok Sabha elections, she had shot down then party colleague Yashwant Sinha’s idea that Narendra Modi be declared the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate because of his immense popularity.

Popularity cannot decide the prime ministerial candidate and there were several leaders with lesser mass appeal who could be very efficient as Prime Minister, she had told NDTV in an exclusive interview.