Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar raised the women's reservation bill issue at the 6th India Region Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) Conference on Saturday.

"The Lok Sabha Speaker is sitting here. The Rajya Sabha has passed the women's reservation bill. Now, the Lok Sabha should pass it so that women get 35 per cent quota in people's representative bodies and help boost the confidence level of women in the country," he said, during his speech backing the appeal of CPA executive committee chairman Emilia Manjova Lifaka, who happens to be an MP in Cameroon for more representation of women.

Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi had raised the issue more than a year ago when she wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to get the bill passed in the Lok Sabha. The Modi government, however, has remained silent on the issue though it was at the forefront in supporting the bill in the Rajya Sabha during the previous Lok Sabha.

The JDU, which was then an ally of the BJP, had reservations about the women's quota bill and had wanted "quota within quota" to be inducted. But it supported the bill at the end.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar raised the issue while giving details of the steps taken for women's empowerment - 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayat and local bodies, 35 per cent reservation in all government jobs, formation of women's self-help groups, encouraging girls to enrol in schools and drive against dowry and child marriage.

"These steps have brought a surprising increase in the confidence of women in Bihar. More than 50 per cent women are being elected in panchayat and local bodies. Now, there is a need to bring confidence from the top," he said.

He said presently, the representation of women in any elected legislative body does not exceed 20 per cent. Nitish said political parties worked under the influence of votebanks.

"I have been working for the development of voters," he stressed.

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan did not react to Nitish's demand on the women's reservation bill. She, however, praised Nitish and recalled how he had interacted with her when Nitish was a Union minister and she was a simple MP.

The Lok Sabha Speaker stuck to the issues to be discussed during the three-day conference- "Parliament's role in the development agenda" and "Legislature and Judiciary - Two important Pillars of Democracy".

"Both these issues needed to be debated by parliamentarians," she said, recalling that as an MP, people of her constituency expected her to clean up the gutters. She said it was the role of elected representatives to see that government money for schemes reach the ground.

Bihar Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Choudhary, while welcoming the delegates, pointed out that the Bihar Assembly had passed many historic bills and it was the first state to pass a bill on the abolition of zamindari, land ceiling and giving settlement rights to land they were residing on to the underprivileged.

He also mentioned that Bihar was the first state to pass a law which gave 50 per cent reservation to women in panchayat bodies.