Dhaka, June 17, 2025 \u2014 Maulana Gazi Ataur Rahman, Joint Secretary General and spokesperson of Islami Andolan Bangladesh, has stated that the National Consensus Commission is exerting pressure to establish agreement on reserving 100 parliamentary seats exclusively for women. He made these remarks on Tuesday following the second day of dialogue at the Foreign Service Academy, where the commission met with various political parties to discuss electoral and constitutional reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maulana Ataur Rahman said that Islami Andolan supports the amendment of Article 70 of the Constitution, allowing Members of Parliament to express independent opinions on all matters except money bills and confidence votes. He added that there is already a consensus on this proposal. Additionally, the party has supported the idea that key parliamentary committees\u2014such as Public Accounts, Privileges, Estimates, and Public Undertakings\u2014should be chaired proportionally by members of the opposition to ensure transparency and effective oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, regarding the proposed increase in reserved seats for women from the current 50 to 100, Maulana Ataur Rahman expressed reservations. \u201cThe Commission is pushing for consensus on reserving 100 seats for women in Parliament. But this has no direct relevance to the July Uprising, which was about protecting the nation from future authoritarianism through necessary reforms,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Highlighting the existing opportunities for women in Bangladeshi politics, he stated, \u201cWomen in Bangladesh already have equal opportunity to contest in all 300 parliamentary seats. They are active in mainstream politics through open contests. Bangladesh is also notable for being led by female heads of state for the longest continuous period in global history.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He acknowledged certain societal realities that limit women\u2019s participation in street-level activism, attributing them to cultural and historical traditions. However, he dismissed the notion that merely increasing reserved seats would bring significant change. \u201cThe idea that adding 50 more reserved seats will bring a major transformation is not realistic. Instead of reservation, women should contest in all constituencies, take part in candidate selection, and lead political parties. That would elevate their dignity. The very concept of reservation can be demeaning to women,\u201d he asserted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, he noted that if all political parties reach a consensus, Islami Andolan would be open to considering the proposal to reserve 100 seats for women. However, he emphasized that any such reservation must be implemented through the Proportional Representation (PR) system and should be based on the percentage of votes secured by each party. \u201cThis aligns with the commission\u2019s alternative proposal as well. Women\u2019s seats could be allocated based on the share of votes received by each party, ensuring fairness,\u201d Maulana Ataur Rahman concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dhaka, June 17, 2025 \u2014 Maulana Gazi Ataur Rahman, Joint Secretary General and spokesperson of Islami Andolan Bangladesh, has stated that the National Consensus Commission is exerting pressure to establish agreement on reserving 100 parliamentary seats exclusively for women. He made these remarks on Tuesday following the second day of dialogue at the Foreign Service […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6284,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278\/revisions\/6284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}