LUCKNOW: In a novel and unique initiative, UP Assembly has decided to give a prominent voice to women lawmakers by keeping a day exclusively for them to raise the issues concerning their respective constituencies during the upcoming Monsoon Session which will take off on September 19.
The decision to this effect was taken by Assembly Speaker Satish Mahan, who, in acknowledgment of the thoughts of women MLAs, decided to fix a day for them when only women lawmakers would put forth their thoughts on the floor of the house during the session.
Mahana’s decision came through after an interaction with MLAs during which the women lawmakers rued over not getting adequate opportunity to speak in the house.
The UP assembly has a strength of 403 members of which only 47 are women.
“All women members will be given an opportunity to speak on the issues they want to after the question hour on the specified day,” Mahana said.
The women MLAs, cutting across the party lines, welcomed the Speakers’ initiative calling it a much-awaited gesture to empower the women MLAs by ensuring that their voice was heard without getting sunk in the din of the house.
BJP’s Rae Bareli MLA Aditi Singh, who earlier represented Congress Party in Assembly, said that the initiative would ensure that women MLAs were heard patiently by their male counterparts otherwise women members were not able to speak. “This is certainly a new idea and altogether a new approach,” she stated.
The only women MLA of the Congress party in the house, Aradhana Mishra “Mona” also welcomed the move saying the initiative would prove to be a trendsetter for the rest of the country. She said that in a patriarchal society where women face serious issues on a number of professional and personal fronts including politics, the decision to save a day for women legislators was a great idea and it would help the women lawmakers put forth their thoughts without being interrupted. The Congress leader was one among those women MLAs who had urged the
speaker to make such a provision.
“We had requested speaker Satish Mahana for a separate time slot. Many of us may not be good orators. A special day or time slot for women members will definitely help us,” said the Congress leader who represents Rampur Khas in UP assembly.
Similarly, Ragini Sonkar, SP’s Machhlishahr MLA, said that despite being half of the population, the women constituted only 11.6 per cent of the total number of elected representatives in UP Assembly. As a woman MLA belonging to opposition party, I don’t get many opportunities to speak in the House. I am grateful to the Speaker for saving a day for us as the move a welcome step towards women empowerment,” said Sonkar, an ophthalmologist who completed her MD from AIIMS-New Delhi in 2021.