Mayawati too has reservations on women's quota bill

(Credit: IANS) Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Sunday expressed strong reservations against the women's reservation bill to be introduced in Rajya Sabha on Monday.

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mayawati said that her party would not support the bill unless it was suitably amended on the lines suggested by her, which were similar to the issues raised by Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Mayawati too regarded the bill as directed against the interests of "Dalits, minorities and backwards." Hours after Mulayam Singh had condemned the bill, BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Misra held a press conference to express the party's opposition to the bill.

"The bill is not acceptable to us in the form it was tabled in the parliament", Misra said. "What they need to do is to ensure that the proposed 33 percent reservation for women is granted over and above the existing reservation for Dalits and OBCs (other backward classes)," he said.

According to him, the BSP president has further urged the prime minister to ensure the benefit of the proposed reservation not only to women belonging to scheduled castes and OBCs alone, "but also to the ones from minority and the poor among upper castes."

"She has made it very clear that BSP would not support the bill without the suggested changes," Misra said.