Women’S Reservation: Race between BJP and JD(U) to take credit for ‘women’s empowerment’

BIHAR: A day after the Women’s Reservation Bill was passed from both Houses of the Parliament, the BJP and its erstwhile partner, the JD(U) indulged in a peculiar contest on Friday to claim themselves as the “real well wishers” of the women.
On a day when PM Narendra Modi, while addressing the women BJP workers at the party headquarters in Delhi, described the passage of the bill from the Parliament as a “proclamation of the New India’s democratic commitment” and an “evidence of the Modi’s guarantee of women-led development”, the Bihar government headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar issued a full-page advertisement in the vernacular dailies to highlight how it has been constantly working for the empowerment of women since coming to power in November 2005.
In the front-page advertisement titled “

Mahila Sashaktikaran: Agua Bana Bihar

” carrying a photograph of a smiling Nitish, six major initiatives launched by the state government to empower the women have been mentioned in detail. The advertisement was issued by the Information and Public Relations Department (IPRD) in “public interest”.
The first point mentions that Bihar became the first state in the country to grant 50 per cent reservation to women in panchayati raj institutions (in 2006) and then in local bodies (2007). Similarly, the state government has reserved 50 per cent of seats for women in primary teachers’ recruitment since 2006, it adds.
The other achievements, it mentions, are that the state government started self-help group Jeevika in 2006 and currently more than 1.30 crore women have been benefiting from this initiative. Further, it granted 35 per cent reservation to women in state police jobs (in 2013) and another 35 per cent reservation for them in all state government jobs (in 2016), while it has reserved 33 per cent seats for admission of girl students in state-run medical, engineering and educational institutions affiliated to sports universities.
Another half-page advertisement was issued by JD(U) minister Ashok Choudhary where he mentioned similar things. One interesting point that he mentioned here was that Nitish Kumar was a member of a parliamentary committee that was constituted in 1996 for granting “Women’s Reservation” and also how the free cycle and uniform scheme for schoolgirls launched by the Nitish Kumar government has brought revolutionary changes in the education sector. The advertisement was captioned “

Mera Neta, Mera Abhiman

” with a pensive Nitish in the background.
Reacting to the IPRD advertisement, state BJP spokesperson Manoj Sharma said Nitish was trying to take all credit for women’s empowerment while the BJP was behind it. “Nitishji is perhaps a victim of memory loss. He must have also told the masses with whose support he ran the government from 2005 to 2013 in the state?” Sharma told the TOI on Friday adding but for the BJP support no such initiative would have been launched. He also charged the CM with wasting money on image branding through ads.
The JD(U) said the advertisement was issued to tell the masses how “some people” are trying to be the “champion of women’s empowerment” while it’s Bihar which has emerged as the role model of women’s empowerment by taking drastic steps for their promotion. “The issue of women’s reservation figured at number One position in BJP’s manifesto released in 2014 but in 2019, it moved to 14^th position. Why is that so? The BJP must explain that,” JD(U)’s state spokesperson Neeraj Kumar asked.
JD(U)’s national general secretary Rajib Ranjan, on the other hand, termed the BJP as “anti-backward, anti-EBC and anti-women.”