Dimapur, October 23 (MExN): The Rising People’s Party (RPP) on Saturday censured the state government—the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) for being “tone-deaf” while dealing with the issue of women reservation in urban local bodies (ULBs).
Referring to a “secret meeting” convened by the Chief Minister on October 20 with the Eastern Nagaland People's Organisation (ENPO), the Central Nagaland Tribes Council (CNTC), and the Tenyimi People's Organisation (TPO), the RPP said that “no women in any capacity attended the meeting.”
“The RPP cannot fathom why this government is so bent on omitting women from any discussion pertaining to women reservation? It’s almost as if the UDA government is anti-women,” it stated in a press release on Saturday.
The party stated that it had questioned the government on the same issue when the latter had convened a consultative meeting on the August 18 without a single woman participating in the discussion. “The RPP had reminded the government then that ‘women reservation is a complex subject which CSOs are ill-equipped to handle,’” and it had called for broader discussion on the issue if the government was serious about women empowerment, the release stated.
“However, instead of seeking women’s (and experts) opinion on such a weighty matter, the government apparently convened a secret meeting and sneakily formed a committee comprising of the CS (Chief Secretary) and representatives from ENPO, TPO and CNTC,” it said.
The “secretive manner” in which the committee was formed without women representation, clearly suggests that the Chief Minister has a hidden agenda, it claimed, adding that the exercise was “another irrefutable example of the Chief Minister indulging the CSOs.” It went to state that there was no point in having an elected government if the “Chief Minister wants Naga CSOs to take decisions for the government.”
“Instead of inviting some of the best minds such as scholars, academicians, think-tanks and the bar associations for thread-bare discussion, the Chief Minister is being divisive here,” it added.
