Women's bill: Opponents vehement, govt firm

New Delhi: Opponents of the Women's Reservation Bill have stepped up their attack on the government ahead of its planned passage in the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

Slamming the measure as a "dangerous" one, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav alleged in Lucknow that it was a conspiracy to prevent Muslims, backwards and Dalits from entering Parliament and state Assemblies.

Attacking Congress and BJP, he accused them of always being anti-Muslim, anti-backwards and anti-Dalit. "Therefore, they want to amend the Constitution," he said.

In Patna, RJD chief Lalu Prasad said his party will oppose "tooth and nail" the measure and is "even prepared to be marshalled out" of the House.

While SP said it will be issuing a whip to its MPs over the measure, RJD made it clear that it has asked its members their protest against the bill in the Upper House.

But Law Minister M Veerappa Moily said there was no other option but to push forward with it in the absence of a full consensus.

Giving the government's view, Moily said, "After all, the country needs such a legislation...With all our best of intentions, the political parties could not evolve a system where adequate representation was made available to women."

The opponents to the measure now number less than 26 in the House, with an effective strength of 233, as the JD(U) remains sharply divided following Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's support to it. A Constitution amendment needs a two-thirds majority in voting requiring the support of 155 in the House. The bill has clear backing of at least 165 MPs now.

While SP has 12 members in Rajya Sabha, RJD has 4.

Meanwhile, JD(S) president and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda said his party would support the bill if it incorporates a separate quota for the OBC category.

Ignoring a separate quota for OBC category in the bill was a big lacuna, he told reporters in Bangalore. JD (S) has two MPs in the Upper House.

To a question that BJP was taking credit for the bill, Moily, who will be piloting the measure in the House, said no single party could take credit for the measure. He hailed the consensus among the major parties on it.

"People of the country, the women and Parliament will take the credit for it. There is no partition in this credit," Moily told reporters here.

The SP chief, who has been steadfastly opposed to the bill, told reporters that his party "is not against reservation to women, but we are against the present format of the bill."

Yadav contended that when not a single Muslim MP was elected to Parliament from several states including Gujarat, MP, Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana, how could a Muslim women be elected without reservation.

"This bill is dangerous.... If it is enacted, Muslims and OBCs will be at the receiving end," he said.

Yadav said that if the intention was to promote women, then why was reservation not being offered in government jobs and in the education sector.

Lalu Prasad, who was talking to reporters before leaving for here, criticised Nitish Kumar for alleged "dual standards" on the women's quota issue and recalled that the Bihar Chief Minister, while as a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the bill on 1997, had given a dissenting note.