New Delhi: For Ramakant Khalap, that morning in 1996 was like any other, until it wasn’t. Khalap, who was then the Union minister for law and justice, received a call on his RAX (secure) line. On the other side was prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda. “Come over for coffee,” he told Khalap.
In the meeting that followed, Gowda — who assumed office as prime minister in June that year — directed Khalap to ‘bring the women’s reservation bill at the earliest’.
Recalling how that meeting marked a key step in the legislative journey of the women’s reservation bill, Khalap told ThePrint in an interview that the Gowda-led United Front could not get the bill passed in the Lower House “due to differences” among alliance partners.
“Now, history has given this opportunity to Narendra Modi to pass this historic bill,” he said, referring to the passage of the women’s reservation bill — Constitution (128th) Amendment Bill, 2023 — in the Lok Sabha Wednesday, with 454 MPs voting in favour, and two against.
Khalap, however, added that the government should enact 33 percent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, as proposed in the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, without further delay.
Asked how he sees the delimitation rider in the women’s reservation bill passed in the Lok Sabha Wednesday, Khalap said the bill “won’t fulfil the aspirations of women if not enacted immediately”.
“Why make delimitation a precondition? If it is not enacted by 2024, women waiting for their turn will have to wait longer. The government should enact it immediately if it is serious about empowering women. Delimitation can be done even after it is enacted,” he said.
He went on to describe the circumstances that prevented the Gowda government from ensuring the passage of the bill in the Lok Sabha in 1996 and how he became a minister in that administration despite being his party’s only MP in the Lower House. Khalap (77), who served as deputy chief minister of Goa in 1990, has been with the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress.
Also Read: What is delimitation & why enactment of women’s reservation bill depends on it
‘Gowda spoke in half sentences’
Summoning the memory of when he took over as law minister in 1996, Khalap said that “there was a lot of political instability at the time”.
Vajpayee’s 13-day government collapsed after he could not prove his majority on the floor of the House, he said, adding that though Pramod Mahajan asked him to support the government, “the gap (in the number of votes needed to prove a majority) was more”.
Subsequently, opposition parties came together to form the United Front government with Deve Gowda as prime minister.
“One morning, the prime minister called me on my RAX phone which we used in those days. He uttered only half a sentence ‘come over for coffee’. Deve Gowda used to speak in half sentences. Nothing more.”
Khalap said when he reached the prime minister’s residence, Gowda told him to “bring the women’s reservation bill”.
“I asked, this evening? And he said, at the earliest. I met the secretaries and drafted the bill within two-three days after which it was tabled before the cabinet for approval. There were a few leaders who opposed it on the grounds that they thought it was not inclusive, but there was general consensus on the idea behind the bill,” he told ThePrint.
According to Khalap, a bill introduced in Gowda’s home state of Karnataka in 1983 to grant women reservation in local bodies may have influenced his decision to bring similar legislation for Parliament and state assemblies.
Karnataka was the first state to enact one-third reservation for women in local bodies after legislation to that effect was enacted through the Constitution 73rd and 74th Amendment Acts. Deve Gowda was then chief minister and his administration issued an order to provide 33 percent reservation for women in government jobs, and another to reserve 50 percent of the seats for women in elected panchayat bodies and educational institutions.
Gowda even wrote to Rao asking him to table a bill in Parliament to introduce a quota for women in the legislature.
Khalap recalled how after he introduced the bill in the Lok Sabha, women MPs “gheraoed” him. “I became Krishna Kanhaiya that day. They (women MPs) were happy to take the lead and make history.”
He added that the bill could not be passed since “some constituents of the United Front government were not on board”.
In response to a question about where the opposition to the bill stemmed from, Khalap told ThePrint, “Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav did not appear to be in favour of the bill. Sharad Yadav’s ‘parkati mahila’ remark led to ruckus in the House and there was a widespread demand for quota within quota (sub-quotas for SCs/STs and OBCs).”
He added that Sharad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav opposed the bill on the grounds that they believed the reserved seats would be “cornered by upper-class women”.
“There were major disagreements on the issue and it was referred to a standing committee. Since Deve Gowda’s government was a ‘Bhanumati ka kunba’ (coalition), Atal ji used to say it was dependent on the Congress. After the Congress withdrew its support, the government collapsed.” Khalap, who was also a minister in the second United Front government led by Inder Kumar Gujral, said the women’s reservation bill could not be taken up during Gujral’s tenure since that administration was short-lived.
“Today, I am happy that after two decades, the bill has been passed and that too on Ganesh Chaturthi,” he told ThePrint Thursday.
‘Pawar advised Gowda to make me minister’
Khalap also told ThePrint how he became a minister at the Centre despite his party, the MGP, being a single-member party in the Lok Sabha at the time. Elected from Panaji, Khalap was the only MP from the MGP in the 11th Lok Sabha. BJP’s Pramod Mahajan had even quipped once that the single largest party — the BJP, with 161 seats — was out of power but single-member parties were part of government after the 1996 polls.
Asked how he became a part of the United Front government, Khalap said, “After the collapse of the Vajpayee government, one of my friends in Karnataka, R.V. Deshpande asked me to come to Delhi and meet Deve Gowda.
“We met Deve Gowda in Karnataka Bhavan and he sought our support and I promised it to him. After a few hours, I received word that the United Front parties had chosen him as their leader. Sharad Pawar was my friend and he supported me when I was deputy CM.”
Khalap added that since he was known to socialist leaders Madhu Dhanwate and George Fernandes, “maybe Pawar counselled Deve Gowda to induct me (into his cabinet) from Goa”.
The Deve Gowda government lasted for less than a year. And the women’s reservation bill it tabled in the Lok Sabha was sent to a joint committee of Parliament headed by Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Geeta Mukherjee. The committee made a total of seven recommendations, five of which were incorporated in the women’s reservation bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha by the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government in 2008.
Among the recommendations was a ‘sunset clause’ — reservations for women will cease 15 years after the date of enactment of the bill. The committee also recommended that states with less than three Lok Sabha seats be brought under the scope of the legislation, besides the national capital territory (NCT) of Delhi — both of these recommendations have been incorporated in the bill passed in the Lower House Wednesday.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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