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BRS leader K Kavitha begins day-long hunger strike for women’s reservation bill
K Kavitha, daughter of Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will present herself for questioning before ED on Saturday
A day before her appearance before the enforcement directorate in the excise case, BRS leader K Kavitha on Friday commenced a one-day hunger strike demanding the introduction of the women reservation bill in Parliament.
Calling her movement as ‘historic’, the BRS leader demanded the Prime Minister-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to introduce the bill.
“If India needs to develop at par with global players, then women in Indian politics need more and more representation. Therefore, the women reservation bill becomes much more important. It has been pending for 27 years, and many women organisations have tried to work on this,” BRC MLC Kavitha said.
Also Read: BRS MLC Kavitha to appear before ED on March 11 in Delhi excise policy case
Kavitha while recalling the efforts of then Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and how in 1996, he had introduced the Constitution (81st A) Bill in Parliament (to reserve a third of the seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies), stressed that the move only came after several years of agitation by women.
“I feel elated to have an opportunity to take this toward. Leaders from various political outfits are here today. Throughout the day, we will have more and more participation from various political outfits. We will sit on hunger strike today; this is just the beginning. We will take this movement all over India until the women’s reservation bill is passed,” BRS leader told the sit-in protest at the Jantar Mantar.
The protest for the women’s reservation bill is being organised by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Bharat Jagruti.
Leaders from the CPI-(M), BRS, Shiv Sena, and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) among others, were present at the protest site while CPI (M) senior leader Sitaram Yechury inaugurated the event.
Kavitha has been called by the agency so that she can be confronted with Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandran Pillai, an alleged frontman of the “south group”, who was arrested by the ED on Monday.
The agency will record Kavitha’s statement under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) during this confrontation.
Pillai is in ED custody and the agency had earlier said he “represented the south group”, an alleged liquor cartel linked to Kavitha and others.
It is alleged that the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22 to grant licences to liquor traders allowed cartelisation and favoured certain dealers, who had allegedly paid bribes for it-- a charge strongly refuted by AAP.
The policy was later scrapped and Delhi lieutenant governor VK Saxena recommended a CBI probe, following which the ED registered a case under the PMLA.
