Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC Kavitha Kalvakuntla said that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is of the opinion that unless there is a constitutional mandate, it is not possible for women to have adequate representation for Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Kavitha, who is also the daughter of CM KCR, said, “Hon'ble CM KCR himself believes that without a constitutional right in place just like that of local bodies that now gives 14 lakh women a chance to represent, this [women’s representation] is not possible at the national and assembly level.”
Kavitha’s statement came on Tuesday, August 22, a day after the BRS published their first list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state and only seven women were given tickets. She was responding to Telangana’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief and Union Minister G Kishan Reddy who criticised Kavitha for leading a protest in Delhi in March 2023 demanding that the Women’s Reservation Bill be tabled in the Parliament, only for her own party to give tickets only to seven women six per cent) in 115 seats. The Women’s Reservation Bill seeks to reserve one-third of all seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies.
The protest led by Kavitha was held a day before she met the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the Delhi excise policy scam. The ED had asked Kavitha to appear on March 9 and responded by saying that she would appear on March 11, one day after she led the protest in Delhi.
Your concern for women's rights is astonishing but welcoming, if that’s how you personally feel about it, politics aside. Finally someone from BJP has at least acknowledged this long pending demand.
Kishan Anna, with an overwhelming majority in the Parliament, BJP can table &… https://t.co/KWPrDpXvYB
— Kavitha Kalvakuntla (@RaoKavitha) August 22, 2023
>Lashing out at Kishan Reddy, Kavitha questioned why the BJP did not table the Women’s Reservation Bill despite their party having a majority in the Lok Sabha. “Speaking of ticket distribution by the BRS Party, we understand your frustration and confusion. You were waiting to poach our candidates who did not get the tickets. Please don’t link your political insecurities to women’s representation,” she said.
She also asked what Kishan thought about women’s representation in the BJP and Congress and other parties and what they have to offer to the women of Telangana. She said, “I would like to hear your opinion on the issue of women's representation and see what the BJP, Congress, and other parties have to offer to the women of Telangana when it comes to the matter of ticket distribution.”
Kavitha also said that Kishan was “politicising a structural flaw,” and that this “will only expose the intent of all the political parties that represent the aspirations of the people of the country that are never fulfilled, especially by a party that has been boasting about its thumping majority but does nothing for giving women an equal space in political discourse.”