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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Panel wind for women’s bill

Panel wind for women’s bill

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published Published on Dec 18, 2009   modified Modified on Dec 18, 2009

The jinxed women’s reservation bill received a boost today with a parliamentary panel advocating immediate passage in its present form. The panel rejected any dilution of the proposed 33 per cent quota for women with party-based reservation or double-member constituencies.

The bill on women’s reservation in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies should be passed “and put in action without further delay”, the standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice said.

Panel chairperson Jayanthi Natarajan hoped the bill would be taken up in the next session of Parliament. The current session officially ends on December 21, but may be wound up tomorrow.

The committee said the demand for a sub-quota for Other Backward Classes (OBC) and minority women — which the likes of the Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) have used to block the bill — could not be allowed to stall the larger goal of women’s empowerment. It said the government should consider the sub-quota at an appropriate time.

The report admits the issue generated heated debate in the committee. The BJP and the CPM opposed a “quota within the quota”, while the Congress was ready to go along with whatever the consensus was. The Samajwadis, RJD and the DMK supported the sub-quota; two Samajwadi members even gave a note of dissent in the report. The Samajwadis also wanted the overall reservation capped at 20 per cent.

Samajwadi MPs trooped into the well today and demanded outright rejection of the committee’s report. JD(U) and RJD members too reaffirmed their opposition to the bill and vowed to block it.

The government, which has BJP and Left support, has the numbers but a Constitution amendment bill has rarely been passed in the face of such violent opposition.

The committee has opened the possibility of another confrontation by suggesting that reservation for women in the Rajya Sabha and state legislative councils “needs to be examined thoroughly”. The PMK alone had demanded this.

The report said double-member constituencies might result in women being reduced to a secondary status, defeating the bill’s purpose. It denied the rotation system for reserving constituencies, as envisaged in the bill, would fail to motivate lawmakers to nurse their constituencies.

However, the committee agreed that the bill was not clear on the procedure to determine which constituencies should be reserved for women. The panel left the matter to Parliament to sort out. The committee asked the government to provide a legal framework for selection of the reserved constituencies.

The bill sets a 15-year time limit for reservation but the committee said this could be reviewed once adequate political representation of women had been achieved. The committee consulted the states, political parties, NGOs and women’s bodies.


The Telegraph, 18 December, 2009, http://telegraphindia.com/1091218/jsp/frontpage/story_11881079.jsp
 

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