Monday, March 8, 2010

RJD, SP members climb Speaker's podium, snatch women's bill

08/03/2010

New Delhi: High drama prevailed in the Rajya Sabha on Monday when the House met at 2 pm following a series of adjournments over the contentious Women’s Reservation Bill. Voting on the Bill is expected to take place at 6 pm.

In the Lok Sabha there was high voltage drama. The moment Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar called for Question Hour, SP, BSP and RJD members trooped into the Well demanding quotas for OBC, Dalit and Muslim women within the proposed Women's Reservation Bill.
As soon as the House met and Law Minister Veerappa Moily was called to table the Bill, RJD and SP members rushed in and snatched the papers from the table of Speaker Hamid Ansari. They tore some papers and threw it at him. Some of them even tried to climb on to the podium. An embarrassed and shaken Speaker then adjourned the House once again.
In the Lok Sabha too there was high voltage drama. The moment Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar called for Question Hour, SP, BSP and RJD members trooped into the Well demanding quotas for OBC, Dalit and Muslim women within the proposed law to reserve 33 per cent seats in Parliament and State assemblies for the fair sex.
The Speaker refused to adjourn the House and carried on with the Question Hour. SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav gestured his party members to move forward and himself marched to the Well from the side of the treasury benches. Dara Singh Chauhan (BSP) and Lalu Prasad and Umashanker Singh (both RJD) followed Yadav.
Mithilesh Kumar (SP) tried to climb the table placed in front of the Speaker prompting Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee to request Yadav to control his members.
On the SP chief's directive, the members retreated a bit but stayed put in the Well and continued to raise slogans.
Yadavs withdraw support

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) President Lalu Prasad Yadav (R) and Samajwadi Party President Mulayam Singh Yadav (L) shout slogans against the proposed Women's Reservation Bill outside parliament in New Delhi on Monday. Photo Courtesy: AFP
Meanwhile, the Congress led UPA is likely to see a close finish over numbers on Women Reservation Bill in the Parliament. Both Mulayam Yadav's Samajwadi Party and Lalu Prasad's RJD have withdrawn support to the UPA government, pulling out 28 MPs. The Yadavs issued a whip against Women Reservation Bill early Monday morning.
Congress discusses floor strategy
A rattled Congress went into hurdle following the withdrawal of support. Senior party members including Ahmed Patel and Pranab Mukhejee met Sonai Gandhi at 10 janpath to devise a strategy on passing the Bill in Parliament.
Also protests have broken out in Delhi on the issue. Reacting to the charge of RJD that the Bill is anti- Dalit, the UPA govt said that the Bill is actually pro-minorities.
The UPA govt has also expressed hope that the Women's Reservation Bill will be passed in the current session of Parliament despite opposition and that the Bill will be passed with a comfortable margin.

Women supporters of India's ruling Congress Party carry placards portraying party president Sonia Gandhi as they rally in support of the proposed Women's Reservation Bill in New Delhi on International Women's Day on Monday. Photo Courtesy: AFP
The story of the journey of the Women's Reservation Bill cannot be told through its political math. With the Bill set to come up for consideration in the Rajya Sabha on Monday, the political calculators are out again. But as before, those calculations may not be crucial.
In each of its three previous (aborted) Lok Sabha outings in 1996, 1998, 1999, the three formations that officially supported the Bill -- the Congress, BJP and Left -- emphatically outnumbered the three political forces that most violently opposed it -- the RJD and JD(U) (subsumed in the Janata Dal, or as separate parties) and the SP.
In the 1996 Lok Sabha, the first three added up to 353 seats to the latter troika's 63; the equation was 371 to 43 in the 1998 Lok Sabha; and it became 339 to 54 in the 1999 Lok Sabha. Though this time the Constitution (One Hundred and Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2008, was introduced in the Rajya Sabha, the equation in the Lok Sabha remains just as outrightly skewed in favour of the pro-camp: 344 to 47.
If the political numbers haven't shifted dramatically, something else has. For one, none of the main outspoken opponents of the Bill is either part of the governing coalition or allied to it. This was not the case in either 1996, when the ruling United Front counted on Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh and Sharad Yadav, or in 1998 when Nitish Kumar, who had recorded his dissent to the Bill in the report of the Geeta Mukherjee-headed joint parliamentary committee in 1996, was railway minister in the Vajpayee government, or in 1999 when Sharad Yadav had also joined the ruling NDA.
Today Lalu and Mulayam support the UPA from outside, but their support is hardly crucial to the Congress in power. The subduing of both Yadavs, which happened primarily in their bastions of UP and Bihar, has come full circle in New Delhi.

Janata Dal (United) President Sharad Yadav arrives at parliament in New Delhi on Monday. An attempt by India's government to pass legislation reserving a third of all seats in the national parliament provoked uproar today as opposition politicians forced repeated adjournments. Photo Courtesy: AFP
For Sharad Yadav, the story has taken an even crueller turn perhaps. With his JD(U) colleague Nitish Kumar announcing his own U-turn on the Bill, Yadav is left to cope with a party that is internally divided. From Yadav's perspective, it is an acutely unfair tug of war: JD(U) MPs must choose between Yadav, titular head of an NDA that is a decidedly pale version of itself, and Nitish, the JD(U)'s only mass leader and chief minister in a crucial election year in Bihar.
But if the intensity of the opposition to the Bill has gone down rather dramatically, the reasons don't have to do with merely the reduced political-electoral clout of the principal opponents of the measure. Nitish's turnaround on the Bill shows that.
For Nitish, the rethink is perhaps part of a search for a new political idiom and constituency that has marked his tenure as chief minister of Bihar. Lacking the kind of committed caste base that was once -- and, in some measure, still is -- commanded by his rivals in Bihar, Nitish has tried to play the old caste game and also tread new ground. As part of his search for new constituencies, he has made efforts to craft new mobilisations, including that of women. The reservation of 50 per cent of seats in panchayats for women in Bihar is part of the Nitish experiment.
Though Nitish's attempt is driven by his specific compulsions in Bihar, it speaks of a wider change. Women are still not commonly seen to be a political-electoral constituency, but at the same time, for politicians who have exhausted the limits of the old kinds of identity politics and are in search of wider coalitions and newer mobilisations, the charge of being "anti-women" is not one that can be allowed to stick to the kurta anymore. Even those who once scoffed at the demands of political correctness can now do so only at their possible political peril.

Women supporters of India's ruling Congress Party rally in support of the proposed Women's Reservation Bill in New Delhi on Monday. However, the battle for greater representation to women in our legislatures never really needed to be this hard fought -- women's representation has crossed 10 per cent for the first time in the 15th Lok Sabha Photo Courtesy: AFP
While Nitish's reversal has been dramatic, the DMK's quieter reversal -- it opposed the Bill in 1996 and has now pledged its support -- attests to the same shift in a political culture in transition.
Of course, the new opening that the Bill has found in the polity is riddled with its own closures. Be it the old opposition to the Bill, or the newly consolidated support for it, the Women's Reservation Bill itself remains a black box. While they swear their commitment to women's reservation, supporters of the Bill refuse to discuss the efficacy of its specific modalities.
The battle for greater representation to women in our legislatures never really needed to be this hard fought -- women's representation has crossed 10 per cent for the first time in the 15th Lok Sabha; among the major states, women make up only 12 per cent of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, 10 per cent in Bihar, 9 per cent in Gujarat, 10 per cent in Haryana, 4 per cent in Maharashtra, 9 per cent in Tamil Nadu, 6 per cent in Uttar Pradesh and 13 per cent in West Bengal.
But there has never been a debate in the House on whether rotational reservation, for instance, which will involve the unsettling of two-thirds of candidates in every election, is the best way to ensure greater representation of women leaders from the ground level. It remains to be seen whether that debate will be joined in the Rajya Sabha on Monday.
Source: India Syndicate, Indian Express


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K.Venugopal
#1
08 March 2010 18:05:41
The Women's Reservation Bill has been made a farce and the Congress is complicit in the plot because the Yadavs have projected it as an issue of Muslim interest and there is no way the Congress is going to displease the Muslims in any way. Congress would indeed have supported the bill if the Yadavs only clamoured for OBC reservation but the sly guys have brought in the Muslim angle and cornered the Congress. The Communists will also find a way to put the bill without Muslim reservation in cold storage. Only the BJP is committed to pass the bill in its present form. Will the women of this country take note?

paln
#2
08 March 2010 18:00:49
I have my doubts about success of such quota system, we have so nefariously used over years and years..its also true that just being a woman politician is not a sinecure for political evils..and we know quite a few female names and thier dids.
Nevertheless, its worth trying. Its always good to balance. Now 33% could be too high. Than there should be a time frame for such a quota. We have seen how reservation of schedule caste card is not played endlessly, now going to reservation for minorities and than god knows where..
Then a serious question is behavious of our politicians. Its just insane, shameful, disgusting and insulting on democratic system and all of us to see our so called polticians ( i wont call them leaders0 behave in parliament. Its most indecent and arrogant way. Cannot be tolerated, whether they are right or wrong.

null1
#3
08 March 2010 17:49:47
In the name of quota and reservation politics this country has already suffered enough.....please put a stop to this.....Mayawati, Mamta Banerjee, Jaya Lalitha, Sushma Swaraj and many other female politicians did not need any reservations to make it big in politics. And the matter of fact is that women politicians are not better than male politicians. Actually some of the groups in this country have got used to get things easily.... and feminists should understand that this way they would only get alms and not rights....you do not beg for your rights...you fight it out...

apnaAgam
#4
08 March 2010 17:35:21
Well done Mayawati , Mulayam and Laaloo, in the name of reservation of women the manuwadi castiest uppercaste Hindus want to increase there numbers abd throttle downtroddens through back door, without sub quota for Minorities SC ST and OBC amongst minorities the Bill should be dumped all Minority and Downrodden MPs ignore the whip and ensure there unity and make there Govt, Do not expect support and right decisions from Manuwadi Akalis as they are blot on the face of minorities and sold completely to evil forces of Manuwadis.

anil 1976
#5
08 March 2010 17:35:00
Just have a look if this bill goes passed, then if any SWAMY will come in parliament so they will stuck to them like Swamy ji i am rajya sabha member i want to become a Finance minister or railway minister or home or chief. like what swamy ji had done with AIR hostess & post gradute women so then once entered they cannot out from the field.
even in european countries you can count on your fingers how many countries have womens leadership even in usa or uk who is pm or president the word women are equal to men comes from there why they only just providing State secretary why they dont hand over the country to women, UPA congress is under pressure from USA to pass this bill because they knows INDIA can become super power in the next few years & this is the negative point & this all foolish things Credit goes to MRS SONIA GANDHI .
this goverment is not having any quota or reservation for smaller caste or they dont want poor become richer they just want who is having money create money in congress rulling power and all of poor go to village at the election time only we will knock your door then RAHUL GANDHI will sleep in CHAMAAR house that we are equal then after BYE BYE this is what we can expect from congressowhat the plus point has come from CONGRESS even rates for everything is increasing & increasing they jaut want NUCLEAR POWER if you dont have food dont worry we had bought NULEAR Power enrgy with electricity you eat food & youll get better job then only our factory will work

p786p786p
#6
08 March 2010 17:21:21
shame !1

KOTA
#7
08 March 2010 17:13:17
Womans reservation is a forward thinking bill for empowerment of females of India.

Laluji, has already empowered his wife to be CM of Bihar when he was stuck with fodder scam.I do not understand why he should have reservation for the womans bill in present form.

Mulayamji, please understand this is a national requirement.you had already empowered Jayaprada in your party from your state- though she does not belong to your state.

There are so many reservations in Indiameant for upliftment of variuos sections of our society, and undo the social unjust perpetrated on them for centuries....!

I am confident reservation for women, in what ever form will bring in good to our country.

researchers
#8
08 March 2010 17:12:57
I dont knw what are the plus and minuses of passing a reservation bill, but the actions of such people is not acceptable...they should understand the value of house...which gives them enough power to rule the country.....action is required against such politicians....this behvior is nt acceptable

mobilr234
#9
08 March 2010 16:00:09
Women are even worst placed in society than SC, ST and OBC, who have got reservation. If these segment of society can get quotas, why can not the worst affected member of society. country will definitely benefitted from women's empowerment. We should whole heatedly support the bill

INTENSIVEKS
#10
08 March 2010 15:57:38
From the FIRE TO THE FRYING PAN.....
The KATTAR BIHARIs and the UP ke gunde were ruling the roost of Indian Politics of "no mercy...ONLY MONEYBAGS..." and the smart WOMEN SADASYAS have learnt the ART of MAKING MONEY through the SANSADs from these very gundes in Parliament...
Why wait for their "masculine genders" like LALOO PARSHAD and not-so-MULAYAMS who drank the Milk and Cream of the Public Money and the women-folk attending to the maintenance of the BECHARAS AND BACHHADAS..???
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3688176&ucid=309744#uc2Lst309744

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