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| Women quota poised for a fierce showdown in Lok Sabha and may also redefine politics | | | ABID SHAH
EARLY TIMES REPORT
NEW DELHI, Mar 9: The Women Reservation Bill setting aside 33 percent quota for women legislators in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabhas in States that was passed by Rajya Sabha in the form of a Constitutional amendment here today has shifted the attention to the all important Lok Sabha or Lower House of Parliament.
Though the Government support to the Bill in the Lok Sabha is not in any doubt, the stakes are getting heightened as the Bill waits to be taken up for vote in the Lower House. Today's events in the Rajya Sabha or Council of States have swung political scales; and regional political formations have been set rocking, signifying a storm in waiting to be unleashed when the Bill comes up in the Lok Sabha.
A clear breach has been driven between institutional political forces with Congress, BJP and the Left being on the one side and the subaltern heroes on the other. Moreover, Congress that has been spearheading the move for reservation for women in legislatures with others following for past 14 years or so appears to be upsetting its close allies like Mamata Banerjee and even DMK may have reservations without being given any option but to kowtow the Congress on the issue of women's reservation in Central and State legislatures.
The numbers in the Lok Sabha are too different than those of the Rajya Sabha where the Bill today got an overwhelming support of 186 out of 245-member House with a lone MP voting against the Bill and with no abstentions though there have been walk out by the Bahujan Samaj Party and boycott by Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Some of the members had to be physically removed from the House by Marshal after being suspended on a resolution moved by Congress' Prithviraj Chavan. This prompted the BJP leader Arun Jaitley to remark that this happened for the first time after emergency was imposed by the late Indira Gandhi in 1975.
And the Bill in the current Budget Session is expected to be brought before the Lok Sabha in this grim backdrop though it is yet not known whether this would come up before or after passing the Finance Bill.
There is already a talk about forcing a no confidence motion to put the issue of alleged discrimination to women of poorer sections like those from categories like Dalit, tribal, backward and minorities by passing an overall Bill to give quota to women generally and thereby tilting scales in favour of affluent women in an overwhelmingly poor society ridden with social, educational and historic disparities rooted in cast system practiced through ages.
As against this argument by those who have been decrying today's nearly unanimous decision by members present and voting in the Rajya Sabha, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated that the Bill signaled emancipation for women facing servitude and discrimination since generations and addeed that the Bill was not against any section or minorities as was being alleged. The passing of the Bill by the Rajya Sabha has generally been credited to the Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi about whom it was said that she was resolutely behind it as this was one of the dreams of her husband the late Rajiv Gandhi.
Yet the Bill now poised to reach before the Lok Sabha where it would again call for a two-third majority before being sent to State Assemblies for approval by at least half or 14 of them has set political pundits to count various possible combinations and permutations and some of them say that the UPA Government that has thus far been comfortably placed with over 300 members on its side could well turn precarious and hover around a figure of only 274 members on its side against the required magic number of 272.
There are over three dozen parties, without including nine independents, that have their members in the Lok Sabha and Congress alone has 206 in the 543-member House. Yet Congress is making an all out bid to have its way irrespective of the consequences which at worst may lead to polls. And it is said that no party is in any better shape than the ruling Congress and its few cohorts left in the UPA to face the electorate on the issue.
Moreover, it is being felt that there is a silent opposition to the Women's Reservation Bill since this among other things is going to badly threaten the male bastion that the politics has thus far mainly been. Only around 50 women could so far make to the Lok Sabha after each general election and there strength in the Lower House never crossed the 10 percent mark.
This disparity would drastically be changed when the proposed 108th Constitution Amendment Bill to give reservation to women is passed giving way to reserved constituencies for women all over the country through redefining one-third of the Lok Sabha seats as also those of the Vidhan Sabhas. Often politicos would be left at the mercy of their wives by opting to field them in elections as proxies. Legislative Councils or Vidhan Parishads in the States and the Rajya Sabha would not have this quota system where most of the men displaced by women's quota would may well vie to land up.
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