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Indian parliament might have 33% more women

* MP says nothing wrong in adding 180 more seats
* Lalu suggests swapping Lok Sabha with Upper House to resolve seat issue

By Iftikhar Gilani

NEW DELHI: An Indian parliamentary standing committee on Law and Justice, headed by Rajya Sabha Parliamentarian Sudarshan Nachiappan (Congress), has found acceptable a proposition to increase the number of seats for women in parliament by 33 percent.

Since reserving seats for women in parliament, and for state legislatures, had always been a skewed issue in India, the parliamentary panel emerged with the solution while examining a reservation bill pending in the Rajya Sabha (upper house). People like Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Janata Dal (JD) chief Lalu Prasad opposed the plan because there was no quota for women from the lower castes. However, the panel could not complete its report because of the Lok Sabha (lower house) elections, and would now work with members of the new lower house to resume work on the plan.

Acceptable: The idea of increasing seats in the Lok Sabha was also supported on the grounds that the strength of the House was fixed at 545 when India’s population was 300 million. However, the figure had now swelled to over 1 billion. Hence, an increase of 33 percent seats would result in better representation for the people. As a panel member pointed out, many countries including the United Kingdom, from where India got its parliamentary system, had increased the number of seats in the House of Commons. A similar increase had taken place in Russia. Nepal’s national assembly had 700 members, while China’s has 5,000 members, so there was nothing wrong if the Lok Sabha had 725 seats, with 33 percent allocation to women, the member said.

Seating capacity: During discussion on a motion of thanks to the Indian president for her address to the parliament, Lalu Prasad said that seating constraint in the Lok Sabha should not be used as a pretext to oppose the increase in seats for women. As an alternative, he suggested moving the lower house to the Central Hall and the upper house to the Lok Sabha Hall, and converting the Rajya Sabha Hall into a new central hall to solve the problem of limited seating.

Two other proposals emerged during the panel’s consultations. The first proposed giving women from scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) exclusive rights over seats normally reserved for general candidates from these groups. This however was opposed by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati as well as All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalithaa.

The second proposal delt with letting the state assemblies recommend a sub-quota for other backward classes (OBCs) within the proposed 33 percent of quota for women. Parliament had prohibited such a move, saying the number of OBCs varied from state to state and it would be wrong to give them seats irrespective of their percentage in the total population.

Law Ministry officials told the panel that there were no reserved seats for OBCs, unlike the SCs and STs in the Lok Sabha or the assemblies. Sources said members of the panel were divided on the issue, and could not complete a report quickly.

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