Bhubaneswar,Dec.06 : The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) will hold its parliamentary party meeting on December 9, two days ahead of the commencement of winter session of the Parliament, to chalk out strategies for raising the proposal of 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and State legislatures, party sources said.
The meeting will be held at Naveen Nivas, residence Chief Minister and BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik.
Top BJD leaders, including some Ministers, MLAs and MPs, would meet the leaders of seven national parties and 15 regional parties to discuss the proposal, a statement issued by the party said.
Senior leaders Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, Ananta Das and Arabinda Dhali will meet the leaders of the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) while Sashi Bhusan Behera, AU Singhdeo and Pratyusha Rajeshwari Singh will meet the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leaders.
Similarly, Prasanna Acharya, Bed Prakash Agrawal, Bhartruhari Mahtab and Sarojini Hembram will meet BJP leaders. Kalikesh Narayan Singhdeo, Kulamani Samal and Rita Tarai will meet CPI and CPM leaders. Besides, Tathagata Satpathy, Bed Prakash Agrawal, Pinaki Mishra and Prasanna Patsani will meet Congress leaders, while Badri Narayan Patra, Arun Patnaik and Sakuntala Laguri will meet the National Congress Party (NCP) leaders.
The winter session of the state assembly has adopted an unanimous resolution to provide for one-third reservation to women in Parliament as well as the state legislatures.
In 2011, the Odisha government had enhanced the reservation for women in Panchayats and urban local bodies to 50 per cent.
Prasanta Patnaik