Rajya Sabha also passed Women Reservation Bill

After the Lok Sabha, the Women Reservation Bill was on Thursday passed by the Rajya Sabha unanimously. All the 215 members who were present in House voted for the Bill. Now the Bill would be sent to the President and become a law once she gave her assent. The Bill provides for 33 percent reservation for the women in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

Prime minister Narendra Modi had appealed to the members to ensure passage of the Bill unanimously. He said that the Bill would be useful in future.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said "I and my party support this bill". He also said that they were not aware about the bill previously, but vice president knew about this.

Kharge cited union home minister Amit Shah and said that the latter had promised to give two crore jobs every year and Rs15 lakh in the account of every citizen but later said it was just a slogan. He said that his party did not want the Bill to be a mere slogan.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman thanked the former prime minister PV Narsimha Rao and said "he gave 33 per cent reservation to the women in Panchayat Raj. With this, we have seen progress at the panchayat level. Today, in many states, 33% reservation has been increased to 50%".

On Thursday, Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal introduced the bill in the Rajya Sabha. After this, Congress MP Ranjit Ranjan started the discussion. He objected to the name of the bill and said that women do not want salutation, they want equality.