33% Reservation and After

Rajya Sabha gave us entertainment by way of passing 33% Women’s Reservation Bill in March 2010. The next logical step of passing it by Lok Sabha got stalled thanks to Yadav trioka and few other friends who have united for this particular cause. Some groups of MPs started giving their support to ruling coalition in exchange of Clean Chits in the long pending corruption cases against them to run the day-to-day business of the Parliament, when in session. It appears that on one fine day, Lok Sabha will eventually complete this long pending transaction of passing the Bill and send it for Presidential assent.

CEC may find it equitable to declare 33% seats in coming General Elections as reserved for women and rotate them in future general elections. It requires political ingenuity to understand and circumvent the rules. That being the case, let us explore the possible situation when Saran parliamentary constituency, a bastion of RJD supremo, is reserved for women in the next election in 2014 or so.

Lalu Prasad Yadav will spring a surprise in the list of RJD candidates that comes out. An unknown woman candidate called Labri Devi Yadav gets RJD ticket for his Saran Parliamentary constituency! His own name does not appear in the final list of RJD candidates! Some people cry fowl. Nation becomes deeply interested and curious to learn about Ms. Labri, a hitherto unknown political figure. Rabri Devi, in contrast, prefers to re-contest from her Assembly constituency.

Some people observe that Lalu and Labri Devi were not seen together on any platform or in public. They get suspicious. Some activists are bound to file a complaint with CEC and file a public interest litigation in Supreme Court, claiming that since Labri Devi is contesting for a seat reserved for women, it is only fair to ascertain the sex of the candidate. Supreme Court, in all its wisdom, is bound to dismiss the petition, in an analogous manner to most recent judgments, stating:

i) who are you to file a case against Labri Devi? ii) in what way you are affected? iii) Every citizen has a fundamental right to keep his/her private parts private and hence subjecting them to sex-determination tests is unconstitutional iv) even though few criminal might misuse such a fundamental right and get away, SC has a duty to protect the fundamental rights of common people of the country.

Taking a cue from the judgment delivered by SC, CEC will declare sex-determination of the candidates is unwanted intrusion into the privacy of contesting candidates and prohibits the inclusion of the details of private parts in the mandatory disclosures of assets of the candidates. CEC also observes that in sports, sometimes, sex-determination is done to ensure men do not participate in the women’s events. There is no such need in higher form of Sports like Politics.

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For the general elections coming after another lapse of a five-year term, by rotation, Saran seat becomes open. The beauty is that in the RJD list of candidates, Labri’s name does not figure and she disappears into thin air; and there comes back the RJD ticket for our Lalu.