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New
Delhi:
The
Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) Monday said
that they had decided to withdraw support to the Congress-led United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government over differences on the
Women’s Reservation Bill.
“We have decided to pull out. We have withdrawn our support to the
government,” RJD chief Lalu Prasad told reporters outside parliament
after an uproar in the two houses over the bill that seeks to
reserve 33 percent of legislative seats for women.
“We are not
opposing the bill per se. We want, and the nation wants, that the
reservation should be given to backward women who don’t have
resources. The real India should be empowered. Give them 50 percent
reservation. We will not oppose that,” Lalu Prasad said in a joint
news conference with SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Both parties
have been supporting the UPA government from outside.
However, the
technical part of withdrawing their support remains till they submit
a letter to President Pratibha Patil.
The RJD (4)
and SP (22) together have 26 MPs in the Lok Sabha.
'Uproar in the
Parliament'
Earlier, both Houses of
the Parliament were adjourned till
noon on Monday following an opposition uproar to the Women’s
Reservation Bill tabled by Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily.
Representatives of the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Rashstriya Janata
Dal (RJD) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) demanded reservation for
Dalit, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and the minority community in
the Bill.
In
the Rajya Sabha, the SP and the RJD disrupted Question Hour over the
implementation of the Mr. Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission Report
on Minority Welfare.
Soon
after the Chairman of the Upper House, Mohammad Hamid Ansari read
out a message on the International Women''s Day, SP and RJD members
demanded a discussion on why the commission’s report recommending
reservation to minorities, was not being implemented.
Ansari said they could raise the issue during Zero Hour and pleaded
with them to allow Question Hour to proceed.
SP
and RJD members, however, continued to shout slogans seeking
implementation of the report. They then moved towards the Well of
the House forcing Ansari to adjourn the house.
In the Lok Sabha,
SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD president Lalu Prasad joined
their party MPs in raising slogans as the speaker tried to continue
the question hour amid the din.
Some SP and
BSP MPs tried to disrupt the proceedings by gathering near the
speaker’s podium. The MPs from the three parties demanded that the
bill should ensure a “quota within the quota” for women from
backward classes.
At one
stage, Mulayam Singh had a verbal spat with Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee, the leader of the house. A desperate Mukherjee appealed
to Mulayam Yadav with folded hands to end the disruption.
Janata Dal-United
(JD-U) leader Sharad Yadav, one of the bitterest critics of the
bill, was not present in the house.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and his deputy V.
Narayanasamy also tried to pacify Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad but
failed.
Unable to
bring peace, the speaker adjourned the house at 11.20 a.m.
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