Mentality of north India and Parliament still not conducive for women's quota: Sharad Pawar
Pune, Sep 18: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar has said the "mentality" of north India and Parliament seems not conducive yet to giving reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies.
The former Union minister made the remarks on Saturday at a programme organised by the Pune Doctors' Association where he and his daughter and Lok Sabha member Supriya Sule were interviewed.
He was replying to a question on the Women's Reservation Bill, which aims to reserve 33 per cent seats in the Lok Sabha and all state legislative assemblies for women which is yet to be passed, and whether this shows the country is still not mentally ready to accept the women leadership.
Pawar said he had been speaking on this issue in Parliament since he was a Congress Lok Sabha member.
"The 'mansikta' (mentality) of Parliament, especially of north India, has not been conducive (on this issue). I can recall that when I was the Congress Lok Sabha member, I used to talk about the issue of reservation for women in Parliament. Once after completing my speech, I turned back and saw that majority of MPs from my party got up and left. This means even for people from my party, it was not digestible," he said.
The NCP chief said all (parties) should keep trying to get the bill passed.
"When I was the chief minister of Maharashtra, reservation for women was introduced in local bodies like the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti. It was opposed initially but later people accepted it," he added.
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Four booked for tying 18-year-old to tree, beating him up in UP's Pratapgarh
Pratapgarh (UP) (PTI): Four people were booked here for the abduction and assault of a man who they allegedly tied to a tree and beat up, police said on Wednesday.
The incident, a video of which has gone viral, took place on Tuesday afternoon under the Kunda police station limits.
The FIR was registered on Wednesday evening based on a complaint from the victim's father.
According to Keshav Prasad Yadav, a resident of Mauli village, some people called his 18-year-old son Nikhil Yadav on the phone and asked him to come out of his house around 2.30 pm on Tuesday.
As he reached outside the village as instructed, the accused allegedly forced him into a car and took him towards the Tinpedwa forest area, where they tied him to a tree and assaulted, the complainant said.
The attackers also recorded a video of the incident and circulated it on social media. The purported video shows the men thrashing Nikhil one after another, while one of them is assumed to have recorded the act.
Kunda Station House Officer Manoj Pandey confirmed the incident and said efforts are underway to identify and arrest all the accused.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has shared the video on social media, describing the incident as reflective of a "dominant mindset" against the PDA (Pichda or Backward, Dalit, and Alpasankhyak or Minority), and demanded strict action against the accused.
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