Dimapur, Oct. 23 (EMN): The consultation meeting called by the chief minister with ENPO, CNTC and TPO on October 20 regarding women reservation in urban local bodies (ULB) has not gone down well with the Rising People’s Party (RPP), and termed the meeting ‘secret, uncalled for and tasteless’ as no women were represented in the meeting.
RPP wondered why the government was so bent on omitting women from any discussion pertaining to women reservation. It also questioned if the UDA government is ‘anti-women.’
RPP recounted that it had questioned the government on the same issue when the latter had convened a consultative meeting on August 18 without a single woman participating in the discussion. It stated that RPP had reminded the government then that “women reservation is a complex subject which CSOs are ill-equipped to handle” and therefore called for broader discussion on the issue if the government was serious about women empowerment.
However, it lamented that instead of seeking women’s (and experts) opinion on such a weighty matter, the government apparently convened a secret meeting and sneakily formed a committee comprising of the chief secretary and representatives from ENPO, TPO and CNTC.
“The secretive manner in which a committee was formed without women representation clearly suggests that the chief minister has a hidden agenda,” RPP alleged. Also commenting on ‘irrefutable example’ of the chief minister in indulging the CSO, RPP stated that “if the chief minister wants Naga CSOs to take decisions for the government, then there is no point in having an elected government.”
Instead of inviting some of the best minds such as scholars, academicians, think-tanks and the bar associations for thread-bare discussion, RPP has accused the chief minister of being divisive.