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Vajpayee working for consensus over women's bill

Prime Minister A B Vajpayee has taken a fresh initiative for a consensus among various political parties on the Women's Reservation Bill, and its introduction in Parliament depends on the consensus, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Madan Lal Khurana informed the Lok Sabha today.

Responding to inquiries by Geeta Mukherjee (CPI), Somnath Chatterjee (CPI-M) and P Shiv Shanker (Congress) on the status of the bill during Zero Hour, Khurana said the government wanted early introduction and passing of the bill. There was no consensus at the meeting convened by the Speaker yesterday on the issue, he said. Khurana said he had conveyed to the prime minister the feelings of some members who attended yesterday's meeting.

Khurana also made it known that the government does not want to face the same situation as witnessed by the House early this week, when the bill was about to be introduced. If there is no consensus, the same situation will continue, he said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's parliamentary wing has expressed ''serious concern'' over the demand for separate reservation of seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for Muslim women.

A majority of members, who participated in the discussion at this morning's meeting, were totally opposed to the idea, apprehending that it would pave way for further division of the country on religious lines.

The women felt that what the British had done should not be repeated after five decades. At least the BJP should ''not plant the seeds'' for yet another division on religious lines of the country by accepting the demand for reservation for minority women in the bill.

It was agreed that the party will abide by whatever action the prime minister takes without further discussion in the House.

The BJP parliamentary party would again meet on Tuesday to discuss this issue.

In the meantime, vowing to continue their struggle for 33 per cent reservation, hundreds of women activists held a rasta roko and dharna outside Parliament House at noon today and demanded that the government introduce the Women's Reservation Bill in its present undiluted form.

Forming a human chain on the busy Red Cross Road-Rafi Marg roundabout, the slogan-shouting activists held up the traffic for about an hour today, causing a major disruption in vehicular movement.

The activists, from a number of women's organisations, said they would not accept any move to dilute the women's quota of 33 per cent in Parliament and state assemblies.

In a resolution passed at a meeting following the rasta roko, the women's groups condemned the deferring of the bill.

''The sordid farce being enacted in Parliament is a sad reflection on the premier democratic institution of our country. The fact that a small minority could hijack legislation affecting at least half the country's population and that the government was reduced to a helpless witness to this hijacking, is not only a matter of serious concern but also indicates a degree of complicity,'' the resolution added.

The women's groups demanded that the government put an immediate end to all uncertainty regarding the future of the bill. It is quite clear that any talk of trying to build a consensus around the bill where none exists, is only an attempt to stall the bill indefinitely.

''We demand that the government muster up courage to introduce the bill in its present and undiluted form and put it to vote. If any party or member wishes to introduce amendments it can be done at that stage. We, on our part, will not rest until the bill is placed before parliament and voted upon,'' they added.

Yesterday, in fact, senior Communist Party of India leader Geeta Mukherjee and Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee stormed out of Lok Sabha Speaker G M C Balayogi's chambers failing to get an assurance on the exact date on which the Womens' Reservation Bill would be introduced in the house.

The meeting took place just before the weekly business advisory committee meeting to discuss the agenda for next week, and leaders of all political parties were present.

Mukherjee insisted that a date be fixed for the introduction of the bill since the time was running out before the current session was adjourned. Banerjee and a representative of the Telugu Desam Party supported Mukherjee's stand.

Leader of the Opposition Sharad Pawar and his colleague Shiv Shankar maintained a studied silence on the issue. Khurana merely said, "We are prepared," (for introduction of the bill) without committing on the date.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Poornavadi Nari Forum, a Maharashtra-based women's social and cultural organisation, has declared that it would soon convert into a political party.

Forum leader Dr Ramchandra Pralhad Parnerkar told reporters that the forum would convert into a political party exclusively for women at its two-day convention. Besides Maharashtra, the convention would be attended by women from Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Goa.

''It will be a party of the women, for the women and by the women,'' he declared.

He said the forum believed in the philosophy of absolutism which negated dichotomy of concepts like men and women, individual and society, material and spiritual.

Though a supporter of the proposed Women's Reservation Bill, he said the Constitution had granted gender equality and hence ''instead of 33 per cent, there should be 50 per cent reservation for women.'' He, however, opposed reservation for OBC women and others within the proposed 33 per cent quota. ''The forum opposes reservation on the basis of caste, religion or region,'' he said.

UNI

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