Govt offers a ‘new deal’ for women Parties go into huddle before monsoon session
HOUSE MATTERS Ravi Shankar Prasad seeks Oppn support for women quota bill, law against triple talaq and bill to ban nikah halala
NEW DELHI: Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday proposed to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi that the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress come forward to offer a “new deal” to women to ensure equality and adequate legislative representation, responding to the latter’s suggestion to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the women’s reservation bill be passed in Parliament’s monsoon session
“As part of the ‘new deal’, we should approve, in both houses of Parliament, the women reservation bill, the law prohibiting triple talaq and imposing penal consequences on those who violate the law, and the law prohibiting nikah halala,” Prasad wrote to the Congress president.
“You will appreciate that the latter two not only give the women of the Muslim community an unequal treatment but also seriously compromise their dignity,” Prasad wrote to Gandhi.
A bill abolishing the practice of instant triple talaq, passed by the Lok Sabha, is pending in the Rajya Sabha. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017 criminalises the practice of instant triple talaq, or talaq-e-biddat, which allows a man to divorce his wife by uttering the word talaq thrice; it imposes a prison term of up to three years on husbands who violate the law. Nikah halala is a practice under which a man cannot remarry his former wife without her having to go through the process of (temporarily) marrying someone else, consummating the marriage, getting divorced and observing a three-month separation period.
The Congress and some other parties have expressed reservations on the triple talaq bill, and the ruling BJP has accused them of trying to stall it.
Gandhi wrote to Modi on Monday, urging him to ensure passage of the women’s reservation bill in the monsoon session, which begins on Wednesday.
Prasad said the prime minister forwarded to him Gandhi’s letter, and he was the ‘competent authority’ to reply, as the ministry of law and justice deals with the subject matter of the Constitution amendment relating to reservation of seats for women in Parliament and state assemblies.
Prasad said the NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee had first proposed one-third reservation for women, but could not pass a law to this effect for want of a consensus in Parliament. He also rued that despite BJP’S “firm support” to the bill, the UPA government under Manmohan Singh did not make an effort to have the bill passed in the Lok Sabha, after it was cleared by the upper house.
Prasad welcomed Gandhi’s initiative, but asked why the Congress-led UPA government did not take it up for three years during its second term.
The government would also like to know whether all allies of the Congress would support the bill, Prasad asked. Several parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the RJD had opposed passage of the bill without provision for a sub-quota for minorities and other backward classes within the reservation for women
“As national parties, we cannot have two set of standards in dealing with women and their rights,” Prasad wrote in his reply to Gandhi. “We are already too late in conferring the right of adequate representation, equality in personal laws and doing away with such provisions which compromise with women’s dignity.”
Prasad also raised the issue of constitutional status to the national commission on backward classes, calling the proposed legislation a “bill of significant social importance”.
The Lok Sabha cleared a related constitution amendment bill last year, but the Rajya Sabha returned it to the lower house with certain amendments. “It also deserves your party’s unqualified support for assured passage. The government would be eagerly awaiting for your response,” Prasad wrote.
Reacting to Ravi Shankar’s letter, Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said: “Ravi Shankar Prasad should stop playing hide and seek on the issue of women reservation bill and should commit to its passage.” NEWDELHI: Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu told political parties on Tuesday to “talk it out, walk out or vote out,” cautioning them against disrupting work in Parliament, amid escalating tensions between the government and the Opposition a day before the start of the monsoon session.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the Opposition to allow debates that can even help the government to review its policies. The fault lines, however, remained deep as over eight Opposition parties wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to say that the trends that emerged in the budget session might “prove lethal” to constitutional democracy if left unchecked.
“The utter disregard to the rules and the Constitution displayed by the ruling dispensation did not add to the glory of the Chair and the House. We have seen how, day after day, for thirteen consecutive days the House of People was not even allowed to decide on the admissibility of the no-confidence motion,” it said, referring to notices of no-confidence motions brought by parties such as TDP and the YRS Congress Party, the two main parties from Andhra Pradesh.
The day saw a flurry of activity with three all-party meetings, including the first called by the Rajya Sabha chairman, to ensure smooth proceedings in the monsoon session. Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress party’s Ghulam Nabi Azad, maintained that the Opposition should not be blamed for disruptions.
Preparing the ground to attack the government over issues such as lack of job creation, demonetisation of high-value banknotes and alleged crimes against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, Azad told Naidu that the monsoon and the winter sessions must discuss the unfulfilled promises of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Raising the demand for a special package for Andhra Pradesh following its bifurcation in June 2014, TDP’S Y S Chowdary said parties have to protest if laws made by Parliament are not implemented.
At the meeting convened by parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar, Congress leaders demanded that the government bring before Parliament the women’s reservation bill. Ananth Kumar didn’t indicate the government’s strategy on the bill, but said all issues can be discussed.
The monsoon session of parliament will begin on Wednesday and run till August 10.
PM Modi, who joined the meeting towards the end, described smooth running of the House as a “win-win” situation for all. AAP leader Sanjay Singh lashed out at the Bjp-led government at the Centre and Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal at the meeting, noting a Supreme Court ruling that the LG is bound to listen to the city’s democratically elected government and cannot act independently, except in matters concerned with land, law and order and the police.