JOIN USThe BJP criticised the Congress-led government for “not having a strategy” for the passage of the Bill. The saffron party also indicated that it would not vote in favour of the move to reserve 33 per cent of the seats in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, if the Bill was put to vote in the Upper House without a debate.
“The government should have a road map and strategy for passing such an important Bill. We are not in favour of passing such a vital Bill without a discussion. It (a discussion) is a requirement for a Constitutional Amendment as the basic structure of the Constitution will change,” the Deputy Leader of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha, S S Ahluwalia, said.
The Left parties, which are also in favour of the Women’s Reservation Bill, said the Bill should be passed without delay, but not showing any disregard to the parliamentary procedure.
“We want the Bill to be passed and also want the Parliamentary procedure to be respected,” the veteran CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta told journalists after the leftist leaders had a meeting with the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and other senior functionaries of the ruling coalition.
Singh and Mukherjee also had separate meetings with other UPA constituents as well as with senior BJP leaders like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley and the leaders of the AIADMK and TDP.
With both Houses repeatedly adjourned due to the uproar by the Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Bahujan Samaj Party against the Women’s Reservation Bill, the Congress reiterated that it would not give up on the Bill. “The 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies is now inevitable and an inevitable cannot be postponed for long,” said Congress spokesman and Rajya Sabha MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
The Congress also condemned the unruly behaviour by some of the MPs opposed to the Bill.
Shameful, says Brinda
CPM Rajya Sabha MP Brinda Karat said here on Monday that “it was shameful and unfortunate that the bill could not be cleared on the occasion of International Women’s Day,” and blamed the government’s lack of strategy on it, reports PTI from New Delhi.
“The government had the numbers with it and even the opposition was supporting it. The prime minister should have convened the all-party meeting on the issue earlier,” Karat said.