Hours earlier, bipartisan support: Opposition urged Govt to bring women’s quota Bill

In a sign of bipartisan support for a law on quota for women in Parliament and state Assemblies, several Opposition MPs, speaking in the two Houses hours before the Cabinet met Monday, called for such a Bill and its immediate passage.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, said, ‘We all wish that the women’s reservation Bill should be brought and women should be given what is due.’

He urged the government to bring the Bill, saying that even though the world had changed since the first Lok Sabha when 5% of MPs were women, today the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha had only 10% and 14% women MPs, respectively.

Kharge said there had been efforts in the past to enact a law on reservation for women, and if Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar were to take up the issue, the government would respond.

Later in the day, after the Cabinet meeting, Congress communication head Jairam Ramesh said, ‘It has been a long-standing demand of the Congress to implement women’s reservation. We welcome the reported decision of the Union Cabinet and await the details of the Bill. This could have very well been discussed in the all-party meeting before the Special Session, and consensus could have been built instead of operating under a veil of secrecy.’

In Lok Sabha, NCP’ Supriya Sule said, ‘Since we are all deliberating here, I take this opportunity to say that 50 per cent of India’s population is women. So, why do we all not deliberate this in the new Parliament building? Maybe this can be the first decision that the Honourable Prime Minister can take in the new building. We will all support him if he brings reservation for women in Parliament and Assemblies. We will wholeheartedly support this Bill.’

Sule said that in the past, the UPA government wanted to bring the women’s reservation Bill but at that time, it did not have the required numbers.

‘The women’s reservation Bill was brought. Unfortunately, we did not have the numbers, so we could not pass it,’ she said.

She also recalled how Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sharad Pawar, then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, were instrumental in bringing 33 per cent reservation for women in panchayats.

TMC member Sudip Bandyopadhyay said the women’s reservation Bill should be passed without further delay.

‘Our demand is that when we move to the new Parliament building, let this women’s reservation Bill be tabled and passed without further delay. Let it be done on a positive note, so that this Parliament can initiate its journey with a very positive outlook,’ he said.

SAD’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal said, ‘The women’s reservation Bill must come… In the first election of our country, the turnout of women was 46 per cent and now the percentage is even more. How can women’s issues be addressed if there is not proper representation? I demand reservation for women.’

Stating that there are not enough women in the House, Badal said, ‘That is why it takes a Nirbhaya to bring in strong laws. That is why our women wrestlers, who bring laurels to the country, have to fight for months to get justice, and that is why for the horrific Manipur incident of atrocity on women, a No-Confidence Motion had to come in to make this government speak. I think more women are needed in this Parliament.’

TRS member Nama Nageswara Rao also demanded that the women’s reservation Bill be passed in the new Parliament building. In addition to this, the OBC reservation Bill should also be passed, he said.

LJP (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan also said, ‘We want the women’s reservation Bill brought as soon as possible. Today, several women MPs are present here. They have been elected on their own. Therefore, they need no support, but the passage of the Bill will give them more power and we support it.’

At least four parties of the Opposition INDIA bloc – Samajwadi Party, RJD, JMM and the JD(U) – are in favour of a quota-within-quota for OBCs and minorities. However, sources in at least two of these parties said they will not let this issue divide the alliance.

JD(U) senior leader K C Tyagi told The Indian Express: ‘Socialist of all brands are for reservation for women. Neither Mulayam Singh nor Sharad Yadav ever opposed it. When the Bill came in 2010, Nitish Kumar had categorically told Sharad Yadav to support it. However, we are demanding quota-within-quota for SC, ST, backward castes and classes. They must also be represented very well.’

Sources in the SP said its Rajya Sabha floor leader Ram Gopal Yadav raised the demand for quota-within-quota at the all-party meeting on Sunday.

‘Yadav told the meeting that instead of reserving seats, it should be made compulsory for political parties to give a certain percentage of party tickets to women,’ the sources said.

Yadav said there should be a quota within the women quota for SC, OBC and minorities for genuine empowerment of all segments of women in society, sources said.