Govt sure of Rajya Sabha passing women's bill

New Delhi: The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance Government is confident that Parliament will make history on Monday with the Rajya Sabha passing the Women's Reservation Bill.

The Government seems to have the numbers in the Rajya Sabha to get the Bill passed on the Women's Day even though it faces opposition from regional parties like Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party.

Major Opposition parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Left Front have pledged their support to the Bill while many smaller parties, too, are likely to vote in its favour.

First tabled in Parliament in 1996, the Women's Reservation Bill has been one of the most controversial in India's parliamentary history and hanging fire for the last 14 years due to a lack of political consensus.

The Bill seeks to provide 33 per cent reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies on a rotational basis was first introduced in the Lok Sabha on September 12, 1996 by the HD Deve Gowda-led United Front government.

After encountering fierce opposition, the Bill was reintroduced in 1998 and 1999 by the Vajpayee government. However, they too lapsed with the dissolution of their respective Lok Sabhas.

Geeta Mukherjee, the late Communist Party of India MP, was the moving force behind the Bill.

A Joint Parliamentary Committee chaired by her examined the 1996 Bill and made several recommendations, many of which were included in 2008 when the Bill was introduced by the UPA government in the Rajya Sabha amid high drama.

The main opponents to the Bill have been Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad and Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav.

All three have been demanding that there be a quota for Backward Caste women within the larger quota for all women.

"Some women have got together to ask for women's reservation. We may not have the numbers, but I will consume poison and die but not allow passage of the Bill," said Sharad Yadav.

"I want to see women like Kalawati and Bhagwati Devi to be included in the quota. There should be reservation within reservation," said Lalu.

The other opponents of the Bill say that the quota should be at the level of ticket allotments by political parties. Rotational reservation, critics feel, will lead to a grave uncertainty for sitting male MPs and may reduce the incentive for an MP to work for his seat.

Then there are those who feel that a quota will create a new form of "state-sponsored feminism" and could well end up opening the floodgates of the bahu-beti (daughter-in-law and daughter) brigade into politics.

But supporters of the long-pending Bill say that a constitutionally mandated change is absolutely necessary to increase the representation of women in Parliament, which stands at just 10 per cent even after 15 elections.

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