Mamata advises caution

New Delhi, March 8: If Sonia Gandhi was in favour of pushing through the women’s bill on International Women’s Day itself, another lady advised against bulldozing the legislation.

Sources said Mamata Banerjee was among the UPA allies who advocated caution after Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad conveyed to the Prime Minister that they would go to any extent to foil the passage of the bill.

Pressing forward under such circumstances would have meant asking marshals to bodily lift the trouble-makers and bundle them out. But Congress leaders felt that throwing out members of the Samajwadi Party and the RJD would damage future ties and help the BJP.

The sources said the Prime Minister and the Congress’s main troubleshooter, Pranab Mukherjee, were not in favour of bulldozing the bill but Sonia’s insistence on passing the bill today itself created a piquant situation.

Mamata and Sharad Pawar intervened forcefully to convince the Prime Minister that running the risk of antagonising secular parties at this stage was not good politics. The budget is yet to be passed and the government will have to rely on Independents if the Samajwadis and the RJD carry out their threat to withdraw support.

The sources said Mamata, who also mediated between the government and the bill sceptics, saw merit in the demand for sub-quotas for Muslim and backward class women. The Trinamool chief is banking on the minority community to see her through in the Bengal Assembly polls next year.

She conveyed to the Prime Minister that “all viewpoints should be considered” before passing the bill and no section of the society should feel discriminated against.

The DMK was also not in favour of use of force to amend the Constitution. The BJP at this stage indicated that it did not want the bill to be put to vote without a debate. Congress managers grabbed this opportunity to buy time.


Sanjay K. Jha, The Telegraph