BHUBANESWAR: Even as the state government is walking the extra mile to ensure participation of persons with disabilities (PwDs) in the electoral process, their representation in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections has remained almost nil over the years.
This year, as the state gears up for the elections, the situation is no different. Even as there is reservation for PwDs in the field of education and employment, they are yet to be politically empowered, said Sanyas Behera, PwD rights activist and the first divyang OAS officer from the state with 100 per cent blindness.
In 2007, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) granted physically-challenged people the right to political participation under Article 29, which pertains to both contesting and voting in elections. Subsequently, the revised Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, was passed in 2016 guaranteeing a more accessible and inclusive society for PwDs. It also resulted in increased participation of PwDs in public life through reservation in government and educational posts, but it failed to acknowledge the need for empowerment of PwDs in the political sphere, Behera added.
Over the years, none of the three prominent political parties in the state - BJD, BJP and Congress - have thought of reservation for differently-abled candidates in the Assembly and general elections. The rural body polls, though, have been an exception. While Suresh Choudhury of Congress, suffering from locomotor disability, is currently the only PwD zilla parishad member from Kalahandi, wheelchair-bound Minati Barik of Kendrapara was elected as ward member from Bajapur village of the district in 2017.
“The Congress has started the process of political inclusion and I am trying my best to get an MLA ticket or two for our PwD candidates in the state,” said Jitendra Biswal, a disability rights activist and quadriplegic himself, who heads the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) disability cell.
In fact when it comes to disability cells, neither BJD nor BJP have one. Congress, only recently, operationalised its state and district disability cells (in 14 districts) after it appointed Biswal to head the OPCC disability cell. “These district disability cells are acting as the voice of the disabled community of their districts concerned. They will not only try to find out, raise and solve issues/concerns of people with disabilities from their respective districts but also try to identify PwDs with leadership qualities who can be groomed to lead their community in future and take part in electoral politics,” Biswal said.
The demand for political inclusion of PwDs in the state is not new. Back in 2013, a group of PwDs from the state including Biswal and Sruti Mohapatra had launched a countrywide campaign and demanded four per cent reservation for PwDs in the Parliament and other institutions of democracy. They sought a quota of 22 Lok Sabha seats and 10 Rajya Sabha seats on the ground that such people are backward and deserve reservation on the lines of quota for SCs and STs and OBCs. The state currently has 5,16,330 PwD voters.