Wednesday, August 24 2005 18:11 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Opposition today (Aug 24, 2005) suggested that political parties should earmark 33 per cent of the tickets for women in a bid to resolve the impasse over the Women's Reservation Bill.

With consensus eluding the Bill seeking to provide 33 per cent reservation for women in Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, the main opposition BJP said it favoured the Election Commission formula of distributing 33 per cent of the tickets to women.

At a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and convened to evolve a consensus on the vexed issue, opposition political parties by and large accepted the EC formula, senior BJP leader V K Malhotra told reporters.

He said that if all parties accepted their suggestion, there would be no need to amend the Constitution and the Representation of Peoples Act could be modified for the purpose.

To a question, Malhotra said even JD (U), which was a strong votary for quota within quota for SC, ST and OBC women, agreed to BJP's suggestion. JD (U) represented by party chief George Fernandes and Nitish Kumar, however, said if the Bill were introduced in its original form, it would demand sub-quota for women belonging to these categories, Malhotra said.

Asked whether BJP, which was all through supporting the original Bill, accepted the EC formula, Shiv Sena leader Anant Geete, who attended the meeting, said BJP leader Sushma Swaraj was of the view that at least 20 to 25 per cent of the women candidates would get elected. At present there are hardly eight per cent women representatives in the Lok Sabha.

Arun Sharma (AGP) said there was a consensus on the EC formula of political parties mandatory providing 33 per cent tickets to women. He said most of the opposition political parties were opposed to the increase in the total number of seats in Parliament to accommodate women.

NDA Chairperson and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, BJP President L K Advani and senior party leader Jaswant Singh attended the meeting. Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad were also there.