Bharata Rashtra Samithi MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha has said that political parties are a reflection of our society and as long as there is no compulsion to include women in political parties to give them political space, women from non-political backgrounds will find it difficult to get representation.
‘Winnability will be a factor to win for the parties and only women from political backgrounds will get that space if the reservation is not implemented. The BJP must pass the Women’s Reservation Bill as it passed a Bill to change the name of three Acts,” she said.
Ms. Kavitha was speaking at the book launch of journalist Nidhi Sharma’s “She the Leader” in New Delhi on Friday. As a key panelist, she revealed her ideas on range of subjects related to women, including political reservation.
Responding to the question Why is politics not the first choice for women?, she said politics was a very personal decision and her entry was due to her father’s involvement in the Telangana movement. “I wanted to be a business person so that I could give time and start my own business but got involved with politics.”
The former MP said that in corporate India, women fought their way up, but their representation in the boardroom was still low. “Women must get a seat at the table. The sad reality is that almost 80% of startups by women are not given loans by banks and so many businesses owned by women aren’t taken seriously.”
She spoke extensively about the alarming state of drop in the women workforce. “Percentage of women workforce in India is going down. Where are all these educated girls going? There is a 10% drop and only 29% are working today. This is society’s stigma and gets reflected in boardrooms political parties, in Bollywood, in sexism across sectors,” she said.
While speaking about sexism, the former MP from Nizamabad recalled sexism by politicians who refused to acknowledge women in Parliament and rejected reservation. Thanking Sonia Gandhi for ensuring that the Women’s Reservation Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha, she felt the BJP government should take it forward now.
