New Delhi, June 4
On the threshold of a new beginning, the Congress-led UPA government, through President Pratibha Patil, today sent out a firm and unambiguous pro-women message in Parliament of India.
Recalling former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s vision of women’s empowerment (he was the first to reserve 33 per cent seats for women in panchayats in 1992), the ruling alliance, committed itself today to a greater goal of 50 per cent women’s quota in PRIs and urban local bodies. The move would require a constitutional amendment that the President said her government would soon bring.
Besides, she also crystallised in her joint address to Parliament’s UPA’s lofty promise of passing the controversial women’s quota bill within 100 days of its five-year term, ensuring full women literacy (only 54 per cent right now) in the next five years through the National Mission for Female Literacy, fixing women’s quota in the central government jobs and setting up the National Mission on Empowerment of Women for the implementation of all women-centric programmes. All these items occupied top positions in the government’s 100-day agenda, with the women’s bill leading the list of 25 promises for action.
Although the assurances made by the President appeared great on the surface, the debatable question remained how the government was going to realise the goal of passing the quota bill which continued to face stiff opposition. If political murmurings are anything to go by, the bill is not going to have a smooth ride, considering all OBC and dalit-based parties like the RJD, the JDU, the RLD, the SP and the BSP, are against it in the present form. Most fear that fruits of reservation would end up with the elitist, organised classes.
This view was strongly voiced yesterday in the Lok Sabha by JDU chief Sharad Yadav and Shiv Sena’s Chandrakant Khaire, who expressed reservations to the quota bill in the present shape. Sharad went to the extent of warning an indulgent House against discussing controversial issues on day one. “Some of the matters raised here are outside the dignity of the proceedings,” said the socialist leader from Bihar, while Khaire repeated his demand of party-based quota.
Even the Samajwadi Party, in its first parliamentary party meeting held here on May 31, had firmed up its old demand of quota-within-quota and said there would be no change of position. With the Lok Sabha as divided as ever, it will be interesting to see how the government’s strategises passage of the bill in 100 days.
The matter has been pending since 1996 when the bill was first drafted during Prime Minister HD Devegowda’s tenure. It was modified in IK Gujral’s time to include provisions such that seats would be rotated in a manner where a different set of seats would be under reservation in each election, and no seat would be reserved for more than one election during a span of three consecutive elections. Even in Gujral’s time, Sharad Yadav had torn the draft in the Well of the House.
The law kept hitting roadblocks, as expected, only to be reintroduced in the NDA’s regime when a joint parliamentary committee reviewed it and resolved the controversial issues. But the presentation of the draft legislation saw uproarious scenes in Parliament, which again sat on the matter.In the 14th Lok Sabha, the UPA introduced the bill in the Rajya Sabha to prevent it from lapsing.
