The Odisha government has reserved 50 per cent of zilla parishad chairperson posts for women.
According to a notification issued by the panchayati raj department on Saturday, chairperson posts in 15 zilla parishad out of 30 would be reserved for women.
As many as 10 posts will remain unreserved, two zilla parishad chairperson posts would be reserved for SC candidates and three for ST candidates.
Of those 15 seats, three would be reserved for candidates belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC) and four for Scheduled Tribe (ST). This seems to be a masterstroke of chief minister Naveen Patnaik ahead of panchayati election.
The State Election Commission, which is yet to announce the poll dates, on Sunday discussed the current situation arising out of the pandemic and said it would take a call on the elections based on feedbacks by government officials.
Naveen, who is championing the cause of women, is fighting to give 33 per cent reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The party maintained its government was providing 50 per cent reservation to women in urban and rural bodies.
“Biju Janata Dal is the only party in the country, which gave tickets to 33 per cent women in the last general elections,” a senior BJD leader said. At present, in the 147-member Odisha Assembly, there are 15 women members.
Stating that the BJD has become a social movement and women are its soul, Naveen had earlier said: “No household, no state, no country has progressed without empowering its women. We cannot deprive half of our population of their rights.
They must have their rightful place in the political space of our country.”
Naveen has done even better than his late father and former chief minister Biju Patnaik as far as providing reservation to women is concerned. While Biju Patnaik was the first leader to introduce 33 per cent reservation for women in panchayats and urban bodies, Naveen enhanced this quota to 50 per cent.