Kavitha on hunger strike for Women’s Reservation Bill: history, politics behind long-pending law

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• The Bill was introduced in 1996

• demanding passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill (WRB). The Bill  will reserve one-third of the total number of seats in state Assemblies and Parliament for women

• The WRB was passed in the Rajya Sabha in 2010 but the Lok Sabha never voted on it. The Bill has since lapseed

• It is seen as a logical extension of the 72nd and 73rd constitutional amendments (1992,1993), which reserved one third of all seats and chairperson posts for women in rural and urban local governments

• Currently, just 14 per cent of Lok Sabha MPs are women (78 in total)

• Women make roughly 11 per cent of the Rajya Sabha

• While the number has increased significantly since the first Lok Sabha, where women made about 5 per cent of the total MP