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Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji,

You had stated in your address to the nation on the women’s reservation issue that “the fight to give women power participation has been going on for decades…so many women have raised this subject before me. So many sisters have written letters to me explaining everything.” 

Modi ji, Here is another letter to you, from one who has been an active participant in the “decades long fight” you mention. That historic fight was led by women’s organisations, it was led by lakhs of women in the panchayats who fought patriarchal cultures to establish that they were not “proxies”, it was through thousands and thousands of demonstrations, rallies, protests, dharnas, petitions. You also said, “I too have been among those making efforts for it”. No Modi ji, in all these years of struggle we have never ever received any support from you. Your claim is as distant from the truth as Godse’s ideology was from Gandhi’s.

Let’s sift facts from propaganda Modi ji. But before that – in reference to your statement of “sharing the sorrow” of women and your pledge, “I assure every woman of the country: we will remove every obstacle in the path of women’s reservation,” here is a concrete suggestion which will remove your sorrow and every obstacle. Delete the major obstacle which was erected in the 106th constitutional amendment moved by your government in 2023. This links women’s reservation to the census and delimitation. Delete this sentence, Modi ji, and women’s reservations can be implemented from tomorrow. But you won’t do this, Modi ji. Your commitment was never to women’s reservation. 

You were elected as prime minister in 2014. Your party had promised one third reservations for women in its election manifesto. The alliance you led won 336 seats, of which your own party won 282 seats. What were the “efforts” you made? Tell the women of India why you did not pass the women’s Bill in your first term. Not just that Modi ji, you refused to even list the Bill in the government agenda. In the Monsoon Session of 2017, the then Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury as........

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