Despite Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s tall claims about the inclusion of women in politics, his party seems to have failed to give ample representation to women in the cabinet of three states where the Congress has recently formed government. Congress party claims to be a flag bearer as far as the issue of women empowerment is concerned, but ground reports suggest a contrary story.
According to a report, in Rajasthan cabinet, earlier headed by a woman (Vasundhara Raje), now has only one woman minister out of a total of 23 ministers. To the contrary, the previous government under Vasundhara Raje had 4 female ministers in the cabinet. Similarly, there is only one-woman minister out of a total of 12 ministers in Chhattisgarh state cabinet. Madhya Pradesh cabinet is not an exception with only 2 women out of a total of 28-ministers getting the cabinet berth.
Some media reports also suggest that the newly formed Congress government in Rajasthan is considering to revoke the Bhamashah Yojana, a flagship scheme for women empowerment, introduced by the previous BJP government. Bhanwarlal Meghwal, a Cabinet Minister in Rajasthan has stated that the government is considering to scrap down this welfare scheme.
Earlier, the BJP government urged the Congress party to join hands to pass the bills on women reservation, instant triple Talaq and ‘Nikah Halala’ in Parliament in order to empower the other half of the population. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad responded positively to a letter of Rahul Gandhi, asking to pass such a resolution. In his letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi urged to bring in the bill the provision to grant 33 percent reservation to women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies. On which Mr. Prasad wrote back to Rahul Gandhi suggesting that the Congress and the BJP should join hands to pass all the bills. The Law Minister had made it clear that he seeks the support of the Grand Old party to provide constitutional status to the National Commission on Backward Classes.
But, Congress party chose to appease fundamentalists instead of supporting the step to empower the Muslim women as it opposed the Triple Talaq Bill introduced by the NDA government. Earlier, Rahul’s father Rajiv Gandhi had also acted in the same way, when he was the Prime Minister of India. Rajiv Gandhi overturned the verdict of the Supreme Court in the Shah Bano case only to appease the fundamentalist for political gains.
Rahul Gandhi often mocks the BJP and the RSS for not giving equal representation to women but ignores his own hypocrisy on the issue of women empowerment. He once commented “Have you ever seen women wearing shorts working in RSS?” without realizing the sexist nature of the remark. However, the history of the Congress Party is full of hypocrisy and the statement was not as unexpected as it may appear that too coming from a leader who is PM in waiting.