Mulayam: Egging on

New Delhi, June 8: Mulayam Singh Yadav today egged on the women’s reservation bill’s traditional opponents in the Lok Sabha even as male MPs from various other parties preened quietly that the legislation was unlikely to make much headway in the next 100 days.

“We are ready,” the Samajwadi Party chief said, urging his counterparts in the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal (United) to block the bill if the government tried to push it down the House’s throat.

“Laluji (Lalu Prasad) be ready. Sharadji (Sharad Yadav), you also be ready,” Mulayam said.

If Mulayam and Sharad, who has threatened to drink poison if the bill is enacted, have been strident in their opposition, the closet critics of the reservation — many from parties that officially support it — pooh-poohed its chances of seeing early success.

“Sushmaji (Sushma Swaraj) pointed out in her speech that the government has only promised to initiate steps to evolve a consensus on the bill in the next 100 days. That means little else than a few meetings,” a BJP member said, hoping the 33 per cent quota would never be enacted.

Pleading anonymity, he cited what Mulayam had just said about the views of BJP stalwarts Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani.

Mulayam had said both Vajpayee and Advani had told him they wanted a 20 per cent quota for women — and that too not as assured seats in the House but only as a reservation on party candidate lists.

The Samajwadi chief said all parties had agreed to this proposal but the Congress’s reluctance to accept it had killed the idea. Advani, who was in the Lok Sabha when Mulayam said this, did not contest the claim.

Many other members, some even from the Congress, privately agree to the concept of party-level ticket reservation for women. Some are even ready to raise the figure from 20 to 33 per cent.

They claim that seat reservation at the local level — in civic bodies and panchayats — would help a women’s leadership emerge at the grassroots. These women can then reach Parliament on their own if the parties give them tickets.

Mulayam said the bill was designed to drive out the senior leaders of every party, who had reached Parliament through “hard struggle”.

“We will come to Rajya Sabha somehow. But what will happen to the majority of male members? The leaderships of Advani, Lalu, Sharad, Basudeb Acharya were not built in a day. They took decades to be what they are. Now you want to destroy them,” he said.

The Samajwadi chief claimed that India had many strong women leaders despite the pitiable plight of the ordinary woman.

He said “patta bhi nahi hil sakta (even a leaf doesn’t move)” in the Congress without Sonia Gandhi wishing it, and similarly nothing happened in the Bahujan Samaj Party, ADMK and the Trinamul Congress without orders from Mayavati, Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee.

Mulayam suggested the Congress withdraw the bill, call all the parties and evolve a consensus around a 20 per cent party-level reservation. This suggestion would be more acceptable to most male MPs, while killing all talk about “100 days”.