Politicians cutting across party lines were shocked and dismayed at the unprecedented humiliation of Prime Minister IK Gujral by members of his own party when he tried to move for consideration of the women reservation bill in the Lok Sabha yesterday.
While the BJP criticised this as an attack on the institution of Prime Minister and held it to be undermining the authority of a constitutional post, the Communist Party of India Marxist leader Somanth Chatterjee said the situation was unfortunate, and expressed his personal regret.
Some members of Gujrals cabinet privately admitted that it was a humiliation for the Prime Minister. You can describe this either as humilation for the Prime Minister or as his heroic attempt to introduce the bill despite opposition within his own party.
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However, some Janata Dal leaders indicated that parlimentary conventions were secondary to them when pitted against their concern for the welfare of the backward classes and minorities. JD member Ram Kripal Yadav said Gujral should have called a meeting of the Dal before taking any action on the bill.
We had requested him to do so, he pointed out, adding that he and his colleagues would oppose the bill as they were sure it would ignore the interests of the backward classes and the minority.
The chasm between backward caste and upper caste members was visible in every party. While Congress chief whip Santosh Mohan Deb spoke in the House of a consensus at the all-party meeting the previous day for the bill to be taken up for consideration, Congress leader Rajesh Pilot expressed reservations later.
It is a bad precedent, said Pilot. The government handled it badly. The sentiments of the members were right, that what was done in the case of the panchayat reservations should have been done. Sub-quotas have been created in panchayats for women of backward castes.
Samata Party President George Fernandes said he suspected that the entire drama was a farce to project a non-existant commitment. There seems to be a method in this. You bring it at three oclock, when you know there are differences across party lines and within parties, which could not be resolved in half-an-hour.
BJP leader Jaswant Singh focussed on the devaluation of parliamentary norms. I have never known of an occasion when a Prime Minister has been stopped from speaking in the House by his own partymen, he said. The issue was not of the merits or demerits of the bill as such as of the moral authority of the Prime Minister, publicly so rebuked and indeed almost rejected by his own party, he held.
Singh clarified that he was speaking not as a member of the main opposition party but out of real concern for the authority of the office of the Prime Minister of India.
CPI-M leader Somnath chatterjee said that it was not a happy thing in any parliamentary democracy if the Prime Minisiter cannot get an uninterrupted audience. people will lose faith in the system, he held if such things were allowed to continue.
CPI member Gita Mukherjee, who chaired the Parliament select committee on women reservation bill, was angry at Dal leader Sharad Yadavs criticism of women like her. Sharad Yadav is neither man nor women. He is both, she said.