Published: March 11, 2010
NEW DELHI: Two political parties yesterday withdrew support for India's ruling Congress party to protest against a controversial bill reserving one-third of legislative seats for women, possibly weakening the government's capacity to pass laws.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), two regional parties who account for 26 seats in the 545-seat lower house of parliament, were not part of the coalition government but supported it from the outside.
While the Congress-led coalition still has a majority with 272 seats, the withdrawal gives the government less breathing room over key pending economic legislation.
The women's bill is a test for Congress, which sees the quota as a cornerstone of its election-winning platform of inclusive growth. 'Certainly the party will be weakened for future legislation,' said political analyst Amulya Ganguli. 'The government will need every vote it can.'
Championed both by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, the women's bill had been scheduled for a vote yesterday coinciding with International Women's Day.
It is intended to speed up women's empowerment in a country where women lag far behind on many social and health indicators.
'We will withdraw our support to the government and continue our protests against the bill,' RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav told reporters.
The upper house of parliament, where the government introduced the bill, was repeatedly adjourned yesterday and, at one point lawmakers from the two parties rushed to the centre of the house to tear up copies of the bill.
Politicians opposing the bill shouted down speakers and refused to allow the introduction of the legislation and a scheduled debate.
The opponents of the bill argue that the law, which would reserve a third of seats for women in the parliament and state assemblies, would lead to a monopoly by upper caste women at the expense of lower caste and religious minority Muslims. 'We are not anti-women but we want reservations for women hailing from minority and backward classes first,' SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav said.
Mr Yadav said the bill was an attempt by the Congress to appease the rich and the influential upper class. The controversial proposal to reserve 33 per cent of seats, first introduced in parliament in 1996, would dramatically increase women's membership in both houses of parliament where they now occupy about one in 10 seats.
Because the bill involves a constitutional change, it needs the approval of two-thirds of legislators in the upper house after which it will go before the lower house where it also requires a two-thirds majority.
Women currently occupy 59 seats out of 545 in the lower house. There are just 21 women in the 248-seat upper house.
'Our government is committed towards women empowerment. We are moving towards one-third reservation for women in parliament and state legislatures,' Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told a women's leadership summit on Saturday.
It will be a 'gift to the women of India if it is introduced and passed' on International Women's Day, Mrs Gandhi told lawmakers last week.
Some analysts accused the government of playing politics by seeking to appease women by proposing the legislation but without having any realistic chance of it passing.
Panchayats - local governing bodies in towns and villages - already reserve a portion of their seats for women.
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