Women's Bill likely to come up in diluted form

Although the Congress, which leads the ruling UPA, is determined to push the Bill through at the earliest, it does not want to take on the opponents of the proposed legislation head on. Instead, it is prepared to walk an extra mile to strike a consensus. The Bill’s opponents–mainly the Yadav troika (RJD’s Lalu, SP’s Mulayam Singh and JDU’s Sharad Yadav) – have indicated they are prepared for talks over the issue. The latest to join the issue to oppose is BJP’s Vinay Katiyar.

The troika has demanded reduction of the quota from 33 to 20 per cent and “quota within quota” that effectively means reservation for OBCs among women. How the Congress leadership plans to meet these demands is not quite clear, though.

Aware of the strident attack against the Bill by the “backwards”, the Congress is averse to be seen as anti-OBC. Thus, it will do all it can to generate consensus to the extent possible. “Our aim is to pass the Bill before the end of the year because we know it will not be possible to get it through in the coming Budget session,” a senior Congress leader told Deccan Herald. However, action will be initiated shortly on the Bill, as promised in the President’s speech to Parliament, he said.

According to a section of the MPs, it is unlikely that the Bill will be passed in the next session, set to begin by the last week of June and end a month later. What makes its introduction and passage difficult are the layers of processes involved. First, it may take a long time to evolve a consensus. Procedurally, the Bill will be examined by a new parliamentary standing committee on Law and Justice. The previous committee was headed by Congress MP E M Sudarshana Natchiappan.

The Natchiappan committee had prepared draft reports on various aspects of the Bill. Moreover, it had done the necessary groundwork by holding discussions with political parties and chief ministers of seven states as part of an attempt to build consensus on which a few parties had some reservations.

The new committee will study the report of the outgoing panel and come up with its own report. The Law Ministry will study the report and prepare the Bill afresh before sending it to the Cabinet for approval.
DH News Service