By IANS,
New Delhi: With the world observing International Women’s Day, Indian lawmakers Tuesday made a strong pitch for reserving one-third seats in parliament and state legislatures for women.
In a rare show of bonhomie, Lok Sabha members, cutting across party lines, favoured the legislation which was passed by Rajya Sabha March 9, 2010, calling it a step towards political empowerment of women in the world’s largest democracy.
The bill is yet to come before Lok Sabha due to differences among parties.
The differences too came to the fore Tuesday.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushma Swaraj raised the issue of women’s quota, even as Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, Janata Dal-United chief Sharad Yadav and the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Raghuvansh Prasad Yadav demanded a quota within the quota for women from backward castes and minorities.
Referring to President Pratibha Patil, United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar and herself as the opposition leader in the Lok Sabha, Swaraj said the country was proud to have four women in top political positions today.
“But when we are asked the other question on what is the percentage of women representatives in parliament, we hesitantly say it is 10 percent. This imbalance hurts,” she said.
“I request everybody here to arrive at the consensus and let’s pass the bill,” she said, suggesting to the speaker that she call an all-party meeting after the state assembly elections on the matter that has been pending for the last 16 years.
The speaker and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee agreed to the suggestion, though Mukherjee noted that the bill could not be brought to the Lok Sabha in this session.
The opposition also rapped the government over rising inflation, corruption and illegal money stashed abroad when the Lok Sabha took up the general budget for debate.
Initiating the discussion, BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi pulled up Mukherjee on his fiscal policies, noting that the government had no money for important flag-ship programmes such as the MNREGA and the proposed Food Security Bill, even as cost of essential commodities and oil prices were spiralling.
“The government is only trying to fool the aam aadmi (common man). There is fudging of figures. You have failed to control inflation. It is not a rosy picture,” he said.
Wondering if the economic policy followed by the government was for the poor or the rich, he said the economic model of “the West or the IMF” should not be blindly followed in India.
“I don’t think this budget is leading us to growth or development. Development that does not care for the poor, farmers, labourers and such common men is unacceptable to me. Concession to the rich and robbing the poor seems to be your policy,” he charged.
In the Rajya Sabha, the government was cornered over the controversial appointment of ex-bureaucrat P.J. Thomas as chief vigilance commissioner, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying he was “not aware of any irregularity” but took “full responsibility” and was “accountable” for the decision.
He was responding to the BJP and Left members’ demand for fixing accountability in the CVC appointment episode.
“As far as the responsibility for the preparation of that came, it came through normal channels and it came with the approval of the minister of state, department of personal and training… I was not aware of any irregularity and that too of corruption,” he added.
Earlier, the prime minister reiterated that “there has been an error of judgement on our part” in the selection of Thomas, whose appointment was stuck down by the Supreme Court last week.