Look who joined the women’s quota Bill protest: SP, RJD

Now led by the young sons of the founders, Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav respectively, the SP and RJD appear to be moving with the times. The protest is also a platform on which they can find common cause with Opposition parties in their attempt at roasting the Narendra Modi government, on an issue the BJP had once promised to legislate, but has kept mum on since coming to power in 2014. With caveats, though.

On Friday, RJD national spokesperson Subodh Kumar Mehta told The Indian Express, “We are very much in support of the Bill, with the rider that there should be quota within the quota.” He was referring to caste- and community- based quotas within the reservation block for women.

Echoing Mehta was Shyam Rajak, the RJD representative at Jantar Mantar. He said, “Our position is still the same. We support reservation for women and the Women’s Reservation Bill, but with some amendments. We want earmarking of reservation (quota within quota) for women from Dalit, backward, extremely backward and minority communities, in the Bill. You increase the reservation from 33 per cent to 50 per cent… We don’t have any problem… But without reservation for these sections… mahila arakshan ka koi tuk nahin hai (reservation for women has no meaning). Because there is a difference between the financial and educational situation, and overall environment between them and other women. So there should be reservation, but these things should be included.”

SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary expressed a similar opinion while extending his party’s support to the demand for a women’s reservation Bill. He said, “The SP is in support of women’s reservation. But the SP’s formula is different from other parties. In case a certain percentage is fixed and particular seats are reserved for women, what will happen if a party does not find a suitable woman candidate for that seat? The SP already gives tickets to women on seats where suitable women candidates are found,” he said.

Regarding the participation of SP leader Pooja Shukla in the Jantar Mantar agitation, he said he was unaware if she had been sent by the party, or was participating in her personal capacity.

It highlighted the unease the SP has historically displayed about the Bill and the issue. In 2009, the late SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had told reporters outside Parliament, “The [Women’s Reservation] Bill is not acceptable to us in its present form.” Pressed further, he had said, “Did Sonia ji become the country’s leader through reservation? Has Meira Kumar today become Lok Sabha Speaker due to reservation?”

Later in 2010, both the SP and RJD had firmly opposed the Bill when it was introduced by the Congress-led UPA-2 government in the Rajya Sabha. “We won’t tolerate it,” RJD supremo Lalu Prasad had told reporters outside Parliament, adding, “The country’s President is a woman, the Lok Sabha Speaker is a woman, the Congress president and UPA chairperson is also a woman. None of them have come here through the women’s quota.”

At the time, the ingenue Akhilesh Yadav — now the SP chief — had said, “We won’t support the Bill in the present form as we want the Bill to have a provision for OBCs.”

Inside the Rajya Sabha, MPs Subhash Yadav (RJD), Sabir Ali (Lok Janshakti Party), Veerpal Singh Yadav, Nand Kishore Yadav, Amir Alam Khan and Kamal Akhtar (all SP), and Ejaz Ali (unattached) had got suspended for creating ruckus to prevent the passage of the Bill.

Years earlier, in 1997, Mulayam and Lalu’s foil in the JD(U), the late MP Sharad Yadav, had told the Lok Sabha, “Kaun mahila hai, kaun nahin hai, keval bal-kati mahila bhar nahin rahne denge (Who is a woman, who is not, only short-haired women won’t be allowed).”