Rahul Gandhi had promised Congress's unconditional support to PM Modi on women's reservation bill

The long pending women's reservation bill will be tabled in the Lok Sabha during the ongoing special session of Parliament. Congress welcomed the reports of the initiative to grow the space for women.

Once passed, the bill will ensure women's reservation in the Parliament and state assemblies.

Amid the special session, an old letter sent to PM Modi by Rahul Gandhi is widely being circulated, where Gandhi had raised questions regarding women's reservation bill in 2018.

Congress MP Jairam Ramesh shared the 2018 letter, that read, "Our PM says he’s a crusader for women’s empowerment? Time for him to rise above party politics, walk-his-talk & have the Women’s Reservation Bill passed by Parliament. The Congress offers him its unconditional support."

Rahul Gandhi through his letter also pointed out how BJP had supported the bill earlier; Union Minister Arun Jaitley too commented to this and called it 'historic and momentous'.

The women's reservation bill has failed many times before to get cleared. Since 1996, attempts had been made to formulate a law for legislative reservation for women, later in 2010, the UPA government passed the bill in Rajya Sabha but due to pressure from allies it failed in Lok Sabha.

However, the new bill will not be identical to the 2010 bill as it will extend the scope of reservation for women beyond Parliament and state assemblies.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge mentioned the gap between the gender ratio in the Parliament, where he said that the women ratio in Parliament is only 14 per cent, whereas it is just 10 per cent in state assemblies.

This time the bill is likely to get formulated successfully, with the support of NDA, BJD and key Opposition parties.