Backdoor moves to scuttle Women's Bill

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, NOV. 30. Backdoor political moves are being made to scuttle the Women's Reservation Bill with the Government informally contacting representatives of Opposition parties as well as its own coalition partners to discuss the ``merits'' of the Election Commission's suggestion to amend the Representation of People Act to make it mandatory for parties to give at least one-third of all party tickets to women.

The strategy being worked out seems to be that the Bill, as approved by the Geeta Mukherjee joint select committee and introduced in the Lok Sabha, be taken up for discussion towards the end of the session. The ``suggestions'' to amend the RPA instead or increase the total number of Lok sabha seats and then accommodate women could then come from different parties across the political divide and a ``consensus'' could emerge to drop the Bill and take a different route out.

It seems that Mr. Pramod Mahajan, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, has already begun contacting representatives of different parties to sound them out. Ms. Margaret Alva of the Congress(I) confirmed this.

Today, a delegation of the women's wing of the BJP met the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, to present a memorandum to demand 33 per cent reservation for all parliamentary and Assembly seats for women. Mr. Vajpayee is reported to have told them that he would like this Bill to go through. Efforts were being made to create a favourable opinion for the Bill.

However, while the major parties - the BJP as well as the Congress and the Left - are officially sticking to their positions that they will vote in the Bill's favour if it comes up, considerable opposition remains inside the parties.

Alternatives

The idea of rotating constituencies - which would be `women's constituencies' for one or two terms and then revert back to the general pool - is being resisted strongly. The argument is that this goes against the very idea of nursing constituencies. Rotation would mean that MPs will simply not bother to look after their constituencies.

Another idea is that the number of constituencies be increased by roughly 30 per cent, and then, women can be given one-third of it. This would ensure support for the Bill for the sitting MPs would not feel threatened.

However, the view among both the ruling and Opposition parties is that even proportional increase in seats in all States would mean that the gap between the larger States and the smaller ones would increase in terms of absolute number of seats. The smaller States and the southern States may strongly resist such a move.

Yet another suggestion is that women should settle for 15 to 20 per cent reservation. Such a change in the Bill could ensure support from parties which have otherwise been opposing the Bill on other grounds such as reservation of seats for OBC women within the overall women's quota, a demand which also has the support of some BJP leaders like Ms. Uma Bharati.

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