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No BJP MP against Women’s Bill: Sushma Thursday, March 11, 2010 New Delhi: Rejecting reports that there were differences within her party over the Women’s Bill, BJP president Sushma Swaraj on Thursday said all her MPs will follow party line on the issue. Emerging from a meeting at veteran leader and chairperson of the BJP parliamentary party LK Advani’s house with Lok Sabha MPs, she said the MPs differed on the use of Marshals in the Rajya Sabha. “We will not allow that to happen. All MPs said they were with the party on Women’s Bill issue,” she told reporters. Sushma also welcomed Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s statement in the Lok Sabha in which he announced an all party meeting would be called before the bill was brought for voting in the Lower House. “We hope all issues related to Women’s Bill are sorted out in the meet,” she said. The meeting was called after BJP MP Yogi Adityanath said there should be "internal democracy" on such issues and cautioned the party not to fall into Congress' "trap" of diverting the nation's attention from other important matters. "There are other important issues like terrorism and Naxalism, but a week has been wasted in Parliament by discussing reservation for women," he had said. "Reservation is not the need of the hour, it is not required now, as there are other issues of national interest to discuss. It is a conspiracy on the part of the Congress to divert attention from such issues and if BJP falls in this trap, then it would be unfortunate," Adityanath said. He said he was not against the bill but the way it was passed in Rajya Sabha through deployment of marshals. "I am not against the bill, but the way it was cleared in Rajya Sabha with the help of marshals is not acceptable to us. If it is introduced in a similar manner in Lok Sabha, the MPs will be forced to resign," the Gorakhpur MP said. Hinting at differences in BJP over the party's stand on the bill, he said, "Internal democracy within the party is also important, especially on such issues. All decisions cannot be taken by sitting in Delhi and representatives of people should also be taken into confidence for their opinion and there should be internal discussion on it." Adityanath claimed that he did not see any possibility of any whip being issued by BJP in the Lok Sabha for the bill, as it would not be introduced there at all. "The bill has been put in deep freeze, it will not be introduced in Lok Sabha," he said. courtesy |
