UPA’s 100-Day Agenda

The results of the recently concluded parliamentary elections have hopefully given a permanent burial to the politics of divisiveness and religious bigotry. It is a warning to all that in India acceptance of the politics of social inclusion and total equality of all religious groups, especially the minorities, are a prerequisite to obtaining political power.

Good Governance
On the threshold of a new beginning, the Congress-led UPA Government, through President Pratibha Patil, has sent out a firm and unambiguous pro-women message in Parliament of India. The address gives a clear signal that women could expect a better deal from the UPA in the coming days. While the President said the Government would initiate, in the next 100 days, the early passage of the women’s reservation Bill in Parliament, providing for one-third reservation in Parliament and state legislatures and constitutional amendment for 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayats and urban local bodies, the resolve would be tested as in the past by the strong opposition to this from different quarters.

Recalling former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s vision of women’s empowerment (he was the first to reserve 33 per cent seats for women in panchayats in 1992), the ruling alliance, committed itself to a greater goal of 50 per cent women’s quota in PRIs and urban local bodies. The move would require a constitutional amendment that the President said her Government would soon bring.

Besides, she also crystallised in her joint address to Parliament’s UPA’s lofty promise of passing the controversial women’s quota bill within 100 days of its five-year term, ensuring full women literacy (only 54 per cent right now) in the next five years through the National Mission for Female Literacy, fixing women’s quota in the central Government jobs and setting up the National Mission on Empowerment of Women for the implementation of all women-centric programmes. All these items occupied top positions in the Government’s 100-day agenda, with the women’s bill leading the list of 25 promises for action.

Women's Reservation Bill
Recalling former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s vision of women’s empowerment (he was the first to reserve 33 per cent seats for women in panchayats in 1992), the ruling alliance, committed itself today to a greater goal of 50 per cent women’s quota in PRIs and urban local bodies. The move would require a constitutional amendment that the President said her Government would soon bring.

The matter has been pending since 1996 when the bill was first drafted during Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda’s tenure. It was modified in IK Gujral’s time to include provisions such that seats would be rotated in a manner where a different set of seats would be under reservation in each election, and no seat would be reserved for more than one election during a span of three consecutive elections.

Other Promises
There is another old promise to redeem. The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had in September 2004 candidly and in all sincerity stated that the “UPA Government would lose no time to enact the Lok Pal Bill and that the need for it is more urgent than ever”. That it could not be passed was because of concerted opposition by a small clique within the UPA and also helped by quite a few in the Opposition by the not-so-clear move to start a controversy by seeking to include judges in the Lok Pal Bill (which constitutionally was impermissible).

Then another futile debate was started about the expediency of whether to include the Prime Minister under the Lok Pal Bill, notwithstanding the publicly made commendable statement by Manmohan Singh that in his view the office of Prime Minister should be included within the Bill. But many legislators pursuing their own self-interest succeeded in postponing the Bill, notwithstanding the vast public demand led by the Gandhian Satyagraha Brigade and other groups that let the Bill be passed even by excluding the Prime Minister so that the electorate will have confidence that the legislators will be under scrutiny by a high-powered body.

The common people of the country, who have voted the Congress to govern for the second term, would be anxiously awaiting the new Government’s report card to be presented after 100 days.