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No woman on Standing Committee

NEW DELHI: The Standing Committee on Law and Justice of the Rajya Sabha, to which the Women’s Reservation Bill has been referred, does not have a single woman member.

Of course, party leaders and officials in the Rajya Sabha secretariat agree that parties are free to change their members on the committee.

Panel chairman E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan (Congress), talking to The Hindu, expressed the hope that parties would nominate women MPs to four existing vacancies — three from the Lok Sabha and one from the Rajya Sabha.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushma Swaraj said parties often changed members when they found that a particular Bill was being sent to the committee. They accommodated those members who might have an interest in the subject or knew it better.

The Congress, the BJP and the Left parties, which support reservation for women, would certainly not like to keep their members out of the committee. For, the Bill does not find favour with many MPs even of parties which are otherwise committed to supporting it. They fear that will lose their constituencies once these are reserved for women.

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