President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurates first-ever National Conference of Women Legislators in New Delhi. President Mukherjee said the country has not been able to achieve more than 12 per cent representation for women out of the total membership of Parliament. The meeting with the theme, ‘Role of Women Legislators in Nation Building’, has been organised by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. It was attended by women lawmakers from across the country besides Speaker of the Bangladesh Parliament, Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury.

Bangladesh National Assembly Speaker Shirin Chaudhury, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptullah will also address the conference.

The President said unless there is reservation, it is too much to expect that political parties will start giving one- third of tickets to women candidates. On the issue of poor representation of women in committees not dealing with women’s matters, President Mukherjee said representation on such panels is not in the hands of the members of the political parties as it is distributed according to the strength of the parties in the House.