Nothing reflects all-party political calculations more than ongoing parliamentary deliberations and politicalcredit-taking over the women’s reservation bill, which cleared the Lok Sabha yesterday more than 25 years after it was originally introduced.
BJP has been in government with a single party majority for nine years but thought fit to introduce the bill only when general elections are a few months away. When Congress was in power between 2009-2014, Sonia Gandhi could not convince her allies to support the legislation. Parties led by Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav opposed the bill in the Lok Sabha in 2010.
