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New Delhi: The NDA government's fresh efforts to bring and pass the 131st Constitutional Amendement Bill on Women's Reservation and Delimitation gathered momentum on Thursday, with opposition parties being sounded with right signals. Sources indicated that the government will re-introduce the bill that failed to garner the required two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha in the previous session.Government will re-introduce the bill if only they have numbers.
Following the NCP (pawar) positive signal to the proposed Bill, with a 50 per cent seats increase in Lok Sabha, several regional parties are expected to fall in line, government sources said. Samajawadi party said they have not taken a call to support the delimitation bill, and their demand for an all-party meeting, which was not accepted by the government remains. The INDIA bloc had demanded an all-party meeting to discuss the contours of delimitation, though the government preferred one-to-one meetings with parties.
While reports suggested that the NCP (pawar) has pledged support, its top leader Supriya Sule said it was " based solely on speculation" and their position would be finalised only after detailed inner party discussions and consultations within the INDIA bloc.
It may be recalled that in April, a united opposition scuttled the government's attempt to pass the delimitation bill seeking to increase the number of Lok Sabha by 50 per cent using census 2011 as the base and then implement 33% women's quota. The government managed only 298 votes against the opposition's 230, falling short by 54 votes.
While the ruling NDA has 293 votes, it got 298, which included non-NDA YSR Congress MPs.The NDA has now increased its numbers to 319 with the entry of 20 TMC turncoats, who have merged with the NCPI and six Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs, who joined NDA as Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde.
If one goes by the April voting, the NDA has 324 MPs on its side but would need 36 more votes. With three vacancies, the government would require 360 votes if all 540 Lok Sabha MPs vote on the Bill.There are three vacancies in the Lok Sabha.In the Rajya sabha, the ruling NDA will have 154 MPs by July 24. With the support of four YSR Congress MPs, it would still be short of just five votes--163 out of 245-- for a two-thirds majority in the Upper House.
