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Women's bill will sharpen divide between RLM and Congress

Tara Shankar Sahay in new Delhi

The emerging battle of wits between the Congress and the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha is bound to intensify with the stormy introduction of the Women's Reservation Bill in Parliament on Monday, during which Sonia Gandhi's party set silently in the Lok Sabha, leaving the RLM high and dry.

Even as the Samajwadi and Rashtriya Janata Dal members rushed to the well of the Lok Sabha to register their vociferous protest when Union Law Minister M Thambidurai introduced the bill, the Congress members were conspicuous by their silence and pointedly sat aloof during the pandemonium which witnessed two adjournments. The SP and RJD members could only look on in bewilderment as their Congress counterparts refused to join them.

That the ruling coalition at the Centre led by the BJP was happy at the Congress's stance on the bill was reflected in the statement of the Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Madanlal Khurana soon after. He was categorical that his party was "grateful to the Congress" for its stance on the bill which "exposed" parties like the SP and RJD.

There was nothing much that the RLM leadership, especially SP chief Mulaylam Singh Yadav, could do about it except register the RLM's protest against the bill.

The RJD spokesman Shahid Mazdoor, however, felt that while the RLM would continue to agitate against the women's reservation bill, his party's votebank would remain intact in Bihar.

The Samajwadi Party's main worry is that the Women's Reservation Bill could cause problems to it if a larger number of women are pitted in pockets dominated by it. This might result in Mulayam Singh Yadav's party losing votes, which is why the SP leaders appear so perturbed over the introduction of the bill.

Congress spokesman Anil Shastri pointed out that the party's 'Pachmarhi line' had started paying dividends, the credit for which must go to Sonia Gandhi. He said Gandhi had allowed members to have their say during the brain-storming session wherein it had been decided that the party would go it alone in elections and only in rare cases would it join hands with other parties. It is because of this that the Congress spurned the RLM, especially the SP's overtures to have an electoral alliance. Ever since, Mulayam Singh Yadav's party has virtually declared a war on the Congress. The introduction of the women's bill in Parliament, thus, is certain to exacerbate tensions between the two parties.

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