New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi called for the immediate implementation of the women's reservation bill on Friday. He accused the government of deliberately avoiding this issue in order to divert attention from the demand for a caste census.
The Women's reservation bill is a good thing, but two "footnotes" of census and delimitation have been attached, Gandhi told a press conference here a day after the women's reservation bill was passed by Parliament.
The Congress said delimitation and census were "poor excuses" for the postponement of the women's quota and alleged that the entire exercise was to create an election issue, without actually implementing it.
The opposition party also dubbed the bill as a "teasing illusion".
The bill to reserve one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women received the parliamentary nod on Thursday as the Rajya Sabha unanimously voted in its favour.
(with PTI inputs)
