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TMC MP Sushmita Dev. TMC MP Sushmita Dev, the sole female member of the Parliamentary panel entrusted with examining the bill that proposes to raise the marriageable age for women from 18 to 21, has demanded that its meetings be opened to all women MPs in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
Dev is the only woman MP in the 31-member Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports chaired by BJP MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe that will examine the bill that was introduced in Lok Sabha during the winter session of Parliament.
On Monday, Dev wrote to Sahasrabuddhe requesting him to open the meetings of the committee on the issue of the bill to all women MPs. She said that can be done under Rules 84(3) and 275 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States (Rajya Sabha).
“I wish to propose that any woman member of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha be empowered to testify either in writing or in person before the committee on this issue,” Dev wrote. The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha have 81 and 29 women MPs respectively. “I am sure all my honourable female colleagues will have much to contribute to the discussion on this issue,” she added.
On Monday, Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi also wrote to Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu pitching for more representation and participation of women in the discussion around the bill. “It is of utmost importance that the interests of all stakeholders are taken into account and that voices of all, especially women are heard and understood by the committee,” she wrote.
Chaturvedi added that it is “disheartening to note that a bill so pertinent to women and the Indian society will be deliberated upon in a committee where the representation is highly skewed”. The Women and Child Development Ministry is piloting the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill.
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