Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 20: The women’s reservation bill being debated in the Lok Sabha on the third day of the special session of Parliament on Wednesday, by and large received support from almost all the political parties but the ruling BJP and the opposition confronted each other on the terms of implementation of the measure.
Most of the opposition party leaders termed the “Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyanm,” the bill to provide reservation of one-third seats in the Lok Sabha and the state Assemblies to women, as a carrot dangling before women to get their votes in the coming elections without guaranteeing any immediate benefits to them, the ruling BJP maintained that under the constitution implementing the measure earlier than 2029 Parliamentary elections was not possible.
Besides demanding implementation of the reservation from 2024 Parliamentary elections, the opposition also wanted reservations for Other Backward Class (OBC) women within the 33 per cent reservation, but the BJP while pointing out that women belonging to scheduled castes and tribes had been covered under the reservation bill and accused the Congress of changing its stance on the OBC reservation. The BJP members maintained that the women’s reservation bill brought by the then Congress-led UPA government in 2010 also did not provide for OBC reservation within women’s quota but was making such a demand now only to mislead the people.
The debate in the Lok Sabha was kicked off by senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi; MP Nishikant Dubey was the first to speak from the BJP. Opposition MPs highlighted that the women’s reservation proposed by this Bill was made contingent on the completion of a delimitation exercise, for which the date has not yet been determined. Several asked that it be implemented from the 2024 elections itself. BJP MPs highlighted that while previous governments have brought in bills for women’s reservation, none have been successful.
Ex-Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, DMK MP Kanimozhi, and the NCP’s Supriya Sule ripped into the government for failing to respect women, while Union Minister Smriti Irani replied by declaring the government had “made women count.”
Mrs Gandhi opened the seven hours put aside for discussing this bill – which proposes a 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament and state legislatures, but not before the 2029 national election – with a call for a quota (within the larger quota) for women from Other Backward Classes.
The Congress and others have slammed the BJP claiming credit for the women’s bill – a hot-button topic with the general election now months away. The opposition has pointed to a 2010 version of the bill that was tabled by the Congress-led UPA government. The bill cleared the Rajya Sabha but flopped in the Lok Sabha amid protests by the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Mrs Gandhi underlined her party’s support of the bill but red-flagged provisions that make its implementation dependent on delimitation and a census, meaning it will likely not have any effect before the 2029 election. “How many years will they (women) have to wait… two… four… eight? Is this right? Congress demands the bill be implemented immediately,” she said as she also called for “reservation for women from SC, ST and OBC communities. Delaying this would be gross injustice to women.”
DMK MP Kanimozhi said women demanded to be treated as equals rather than being put on pedestals. “This Bill is called the ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam.’ Stop saluting us. We don’t want to be saluted, we don’t want to be put on pedestals, we do not want to be worshipped. We don’t want to be called mothers, we don’t want to be your wives or sisters. We want to be respected as equals,” she said, adding that strong women with what society terms masculine characteristics are often termed the devil.
Referring to strong women leaders in India, she further said that she “has no hesitation in accepting that late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was a very strong woman.” Jayalalithaa was the leader of the AIADMK, the rival of the DMK in Tamil Nadu.
To sharpen her point about how paternalistic models of women’s empowerment were out of sync with society, she quoted the late BJP leader Arun Jaitley, when he had spoken about the women’s reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha in 2010. “I quote Mr. Jaitley: ‘The argument that men can also ensure justice to women has been weakened. Under-representation and discrimination stare us in the face. The time has come for equal representation. The politics of tokenism must now evolve into a politics of ideas’ ”
The NCP MP Supriya Sule responded to Mr Dubey’s jibe at the INDIA bloc and called out a senior Maharashtra BJP leader for telling her “Supriya Sule… go home, cook food. Someone else will run the country.” “This is what the BJP’s mindset is…” she said. Earlier, Ms Sule had also backed Ms Kanimozhi in her speech – when the DMK MP invoked the spirit of strong women leaders, including late J Jayalalithaa. “… well done Kani, exactly!” she said delightedly.
The union minister Smriti Irani took a swipe at Mrs Gandhi (without naming the former Congress chief) for pointing out the UPA government had tabled the bill in 2010. “They say success has many fathers and failure none… so, when the bill came, some people called it ‘our bill’,” Irani said. On Tuesday Mrs Gandhi had told reporters the women’s bill is “apna (ours)”.
On the opposition’s demand reservation for women becomes effective ahead of the 2024 election, Ms Irani asked if they (the opposition) “want us to flout the Constitution?” She also accused the Congress of trying to “mislead the country” by asking for “religion-based quota.” Mrs Gandhi had asked for reservations for women MPs from OBC, SC and ST communities.
The Trinamool’s Kakoli Ghosh also spoke and demanded to know why the BJP had not acted against its own MP – Brij Bhushan Singh – after he was accused of sexual harassment by female wrestlers. She slammed the “late” introduction of the women’s bill a gimmick and said it was “like pulling a rabbit from their hat” and placing it before the country.
Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal hit out at the government over the census and delimitation clause in the bill and said women had been betrayed by a male-dominated parliament. “Devil in the detail came across…The census was to be held in 2021 and now 2023 is about to end and it hasn’t been done yet and we don’t know when will it happen,” she said.
Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav, the wife of the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, emphasised the opposition’s demand to recognise women from minority and backward classes.”
Assam MP from the All India United Democratic Front Badruddin Ajmal attacking the BJP said while the BJP was trying to take credit for the Bill, it was Rajiv Gandhi who first introduced the Bill and the Congress party which passed the Bill in Lok Sabha. “When the Bill moved to Rajya Sabha, the BJP refused to offer support and today they are taking credit,” he said to a roaring house.
Mr Ajmal said women’s reservation was women’s rights. The Parliament should also consider the scarce resources available for women’s education and political parties should encourage local women candidates to contest elections, he said.
Vijay Kumar Hansdak of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, regretted the absence of the President Droupadi Murmu, an Adivasi woman, from the inauguration events of the new Parliament building. “You have invited many people, but the Chair through which this House commences…why don’t we see her?” he asked. Mr Hansdak said while Parliament talked about giving respect and recognition to women, the President’s absence from the new Parliament building was an “insult to the chair”.
Chhattisgarh’s former chief minister and BJP national vice-president Raman Singh called the introduction of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha as one of the “milestones in India’s Parliamentary history.” Mr. Singh added that women’s representation in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies will bolster India’s overall development.
The BJP MP Nishikant Dubey accused the Congress of saying new things “for political angles” and claimed that it had never spoken about an OBC quota in the context of the reservation for women legislators.