33% reservation for women in Andhra Assembly now!

The Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly today unanimously passed a resolution requesting the Centre to enact the Women’s Reservation Bill providing for 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and state legislatures.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who made a special statement in the House on the occasion of International Women’s Day, proposed the resolution and it was adopted unanimously.

“This has been a long-pending demand. On International Women’s Day, we shall request the Centre to enact the women’s reservation bill and give women their due,” the Chief Minister said while making the statement.

He listed out the various initiatives of his government aimed at “empowerment” of women.

Leader of Opposition Y S Jaganmohan Reddy sought to ridicule the Chief Minister’s statement saying the Telugu Desam Party had no respect for women.

“One of your MLAs manhandles a woman tehsildar who tried to curb the sand Mafia. You suspend our woman MLA from the House for a year for no reason. A minister’s son is involved in an eve-teasing incident in Hyderabad. One of your MLAs talks bad things about women. This is the respect you have for women,” Jagan said and alleged that what all the Chief Minister mentioned in the statement were “blatant lies”.

The ruling party members, however, hit back at Jagan one after the other, leaving the opposition leader speechless.

The Chief Minister then moved the resolution on reservations for women.