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BJP to root for women’s quota

	February 25, 2008

The BJP on its part has decided to position itself as defender of women’s rights and has asked the UPA Government to introduce the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Budget session of Parliament opening today, Feb. 25. The party said that it will back the Bill even if parties like Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party opposed the legislation. Speaking at a rally organised by the BJP Mahila Morcha in New Delhi on Feb. 21, the party’s prime-ministerial candidate L.K. Advani said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should not delay reservation for women any fur¬ther. He said, “I urge the Prime Minister to implement what is written in their Common Minimum Programme.”



Challenging the Congress, which has expressed support for the proposal in the past, senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu said, “I want to ask Sonia Gandhi, why are you not deciding on the bill. If you have the political will, bring the Bill. Even if Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh oppose, we will stand by you’.” Even though the Congress supports the move, UPA constituent Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has been insisting on providing a sub-quota, preventing a consensus on the issue in the ruling coali¬tion.



Women voters have become a key constituency of late, as was evident in the Gujarat Assembly election held in December.



The BJP sought to present the Congress-led UPA as an al¬liance that was unconcerned about giving women reservation in the state Assemblies and Parliament. “People are fed up of this gov¬ernment. This government should go. People are looking forward to an NDA government headed by LK Advani,” BJP president Rajnath Singh said.



Presenting the UPA government as one not truly concerned with the advancement of women, Advani said that the promise of quota for women in legislative bodies is “the only mention about women” in its CMP. There is no word on providing them education and health care.”





Do something concrete for farmers : BJP tells Congress



Describing the Congress talk of action to alleviate the problems of farmers as mere lip sympathy, the BJP said the Con¬gress-led UPA should instead take concrete measures to improve the lot of the farmers. BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said in New Delhi on Feb. 22 : “The Congress is shedding crocodile tears on the condition of farmers without any concrete action plan.” He said the Government should accept the recommendations of the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices on the mini¬mum support price for various crops and waive farm loans upto Rs. 50,000. He said the low price of agriculture produce was one of the primary reasons for the poor economic condition of farmers.





Hold elections in Karnataka by May end : BJP tells EC



On Monday, Feb. 18, a delegation of the BJP met the Election Commission and demanded that Assembly elections in Karnataka be held before May 31 on the basis of Delimitation Commission recom¬mendations, reorganizing constituencies all over the state. The party said it is against extension of President’s rule.



The delegation led by Arun Jaitley and Yashwant Sinha sub¬mitted a memorandum saying the elections could be held before the end of May, and booths in the constituencies affected by delimi¬tation reorganised if work began now.



“The party is keen to have the election on the basis of the recommendations of the Delimitation Commission, already gazetted for Karnataka. There is an apprehension the commission may not be able to conduct the polls before May-end once the presidential notification of the date is issued for making the delimitation orders operational,” the memorandum said.



It isn’t necessary for the poll panel to wait for the no¬tification to begin preparatory work to implement the recommenda¬tions, the party said.



As most Assembly constituencies fell within the same dis¬trict, the party argued, it was possible to empower the deputy commissioners to revamp polling booths and bring out fresh elec¬toral rolls.





Congress-BJP war of words on terror



The Congress has slammed BJP president Rajnath Singh for saying that his party was not apologetic about the then BJP-led NDA Government’s decision in Dec. 1999 to free three hardcore terrorists in exchange for the release of the hijacked passengers of an Indian Airlines plane. The hardcore terrorists were escorted by the then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh by a special plane to Kandahar.



“No one should be surprised by the BJP president not ex¬pressing regrets over the Kandahar fiasco,” said Congress spo¬kesman Abhishek Singhvi. “In their ideology and scheme of things, there is no scope for any such thing as regrets, they don’t have regrets for creating a dubious history by their senior minister escorting and releasing three dreaded terrorists as special guests.”



AICC spokesman also alleged, “The BJP does not have any regrets for sleeping and letting the Pakistanis invade and cap¬ture Indian territories during the Kargil episode, they also don’t have regrets for the Babri Masjid demolition, Tehelka expose and the Gujarat carnage.”



Under sustained attack from the Congress on the Kandahar issue, Rajnath Singh had said the Atal Behari Vajpayee gover¬nment’s decision was a “necessity” at that time, refusing to accept that the 1999 Kandahar episode was a “weak point” for the party.



“We had to save the lives of so many people (held hostage on the hijacked plane)... It does not mean we compromised with terrorism,” Singh said, even as Congress chief Sonia Gandhi accused the saffron party of “surrendering to terrorists” at Kandahar.