New Delhi, July 15: Charging the Vajpayee government with "subterfuge" on the Women's Reservation Bill, CPI(M) leader Somnath Chatterjee today said there was no agreement among parties on the creation of double-member constituencies and increasing the number of seats in Lok Sabha. "It is subterfuge on the part of the BJP-led NDA government to say that they will not bring the bill in parliament until a consensus is arrived at. BJP and NDA leaders know that their own members will oppose the bill," he told reporters here.
Referring to statements by BJP leader V K Malhotra that an agreement had been arrived among major parties at the meeting convened by Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi today, Chatterjee said "I wish to categorically state that there was no occasion for me to accept the proposal except to state that as and when they were presented in proper form, the same would be considered on merits".
"Nothing was arrived at" in the meeting, he said, adding "I never agreed on behalf of the party to any such alternate proposal. It was only suggested that if the government formulated some proposals and put them in the form of amendments, then the same would be considered.”
"But there is no question of accepting any such proposal at the present stage," Chatterjee said, asserting that the CPI(M) categorically wanted the Women’s Reservation Bill to be tabled in Parliament in its present form. Bureau Report