- शुक्रबार, १४ वैशाख, २०८१
Kathmandu, Dec. 13: Women rights defenders have demanded that the women representation in the Constituent Assembly (CA) election be reached 33 per cent even if every party has to nominate 60 per cent of the women from the Proportional Representation (PR) list.
At an interaction programme organized here on Friday by Media Advocacy Group, Sancharika Samuha and Didi-Bahini Sanstha on ‘Women Representation in CA’, the women rights activists made the plea as it seems that women’s representation in the new CA would not stand at 33 per cent.
They called upon the parties to allocate 60 per cent of women representation from PR list to meet the provision of 33 per cent representation in aggregate. However, the EC had obligated the parties to nominate 50 per cent.
At the programme, Nepali Congress (NC) leader Dr Ram Sharan Mahat said his party has already decided to allot 50 per cent of 91 seats it secured in the PR category underlining the need to develop women leadership from the grassroots level.
There is dismal participation of women in the politics, he said, stressing the need to put more efforts as how women could be brought to leadership role.
CPN-UML Vice-chairperson Bidhya Devi Bhandari said that the parties should allocate 60 per cent of the total seats they gained under PR category to women so as to meet the criteria of 33 per cent representation.
Unified CPN (Maoist) leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha said that the political change would not be possible without women’s meaningful involvement.
Election Commissioner Ila Sharma also echoed the voice to allocate 60 per cent to meet the provision of 33 per cent representation of women in the CA.
Speaking on the occasion, women activists Saloni Singh, Babita Basnet and Nirmala Sharma said that the parties would not offer opportunity to women in politics without law binding provisions in place. RSS
