Odisha: BJD demands passage of women’s reservation bill in monsoon session

BHUBANESWAR: The BJD on Sunday reiterated its demand to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill during the monsoon session of parliament starting from Monday. The bill will reserve 33% of seats in parliament and state assemblies for women.
At the all-party meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJD’s floor leaders- Prasanna Acharya (Rajya Sabha) and Pinaki Mishra (Lok Sabha) also demanded to table the Odisha Vidhan Parishad Bill during the session.
“Since these two bills are not in the tentative list of bills which the Centre plans to table during the forthcoming session, we have demanded to list these two bills,” said Pinaki.
Ahead of the 2019 general elections, the BJD had reached out to as many as 22 political parties to build consensus over passage of the bill. The TMC has also demanded to pass the bill in the monsoon session.
Stating that several communities in the state awaiting scheduled tribe (ST) tag, the regional party also demanded that the Centre should immediately table the Constitution (ST) Order (amendment) Bill in the forthcoming session.
The regional party also decided to raise issues like lifting of paddy by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and releasing the paddy procurement subsidy of around Rs 6,500 crore to the state by the Centre.
The regional party had recently targeted the Centre for not releasing the subsidy amount and non-lifting of paddy from the state.
“We also demanded that the Centre should share some cess amount collected by the Centre from the petrol and diesel which will help the states to gain financially and to strengthen its fight against the pandemic,” said Pinaki.
Earlier, chief minister Naveen Patnaik had written to Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in this regard.
Among others, the party has decided to raise issues like more grants to the state under railway sector and expeditious implementation of various railway projects in the state pending for years and to increase tele density in the state.
On important national issues, the party said it will make its stand clear on the floor of the house.