SAMAJWADI PARTY’S GROUSE
Women’s quota bill has shortcomings: Mulayam
DH News Service Lucknow:
“The Women’s Reservation Bill, in its present form has many shortcomings. We
cannot support it. Although we have suggested amendments in the bill, these are
unlikely to be accepted,” noted UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav at the
party’s headquarters in Lucknow on Tuesday.
Singh, who was in Delhi on Monday to be part of an all-party meet to discuss the
bill, was emphatic in his stand that the SP would take to the streets,
throughout the state and the country to raise awareness about the bill’s
lacunae. He also blamed the BJP and the Congress of being hand in glove as
regards the bill’s provisions.
The party’s grouse against the proposed bill is that it does not talk of
reservation for backward castes within the proposed 33 per cent reservation for
women. “This is a ploy to crush emerging leadership from the backward classes,”
Yadav complained while pointing out that the last few years had seen a massive
upsurge of backward class leaders and that trend was viewed as a threat by other
parties. “Other parties are threatened by the rise of backward castes to the
chief ministerial position in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar,” he elaborated.
Detailing the other objection to the bill, Yadav explained that 22 per cent
seats were already reserved for the Scheduled castes and Scheduled tribes. If 33
per cent seats went to women then only 45 per cent seats would be left for men.
“The worst forms of it have been visible in the panchayat reservation system
where women are office bearers only in name, while it is the men, who pull their
strings,” he said while dubbing the proposals “against democratic norms”.
Lauding his government for its women friendly ways, the Samjwadi Party president
said his party was in favour of granting 10 to 15 per cent reservation for
women. “We will also appeal to other parties to second our proposals,” he
disclosed while calling his party the only one, which was genuinely interested
in women’s welfare. “The rest of the parties talk of women’s welfare only when
it serves their interest.”
He also expressed his party’s opposition to any plans to increase the number of
seats in the central and state legislatures. “Increasing the number of seats
will only weaken the legislature,” he offered. He also pointed out a practical
problem: paucity of seating space, if the number of seats were to be increased.
[Deccan Herald: Wednesday, August 24, 2005]