Destination NY -- 17 women MPs make the trip finally

Destination NY -- 17 women MPs make the trip finally
SANTWANA BHATTACHARYA

NEW DELHI, JUNE 5: Much to the chagrin of women MPs, only 17 out of 64 have finally made it to the official delegation to New York for the UN General Assembly on gender equality, development and peace in the new century. And that too after hectic lobbying, which included interventions from Lok Sabha Speaker G M C Balayogi and trips to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's residence.

At the last moment, seven new names were added to the original list of 10, chosen from a spectrum of political parties by the Human Resource Development Ministry as part of the official delegation.

And the seven additional members -- Mayawati, BSP, Phoolan Devi, Samajwadi Party, V Rajeswaramma, TDP, Saroj Dubey, RJD, Sarooja, AIADMK, Mable Rebelo, Congress, and Selvi Das, a nominated member of Rajya Sabha -- have been funded as members of the inter-parliamentary delegation from the entire parliamentary union.

They were included after the entire delegation of 64 women MPs protested at the Speaker's office. Balayogi then decided to foot the additional expenses from parliamentary funds.

This being the first UN special session after the 1995 Beijing conference for which the Narasimha Rao Government had sent all the then women MPs, the present crop of women MPs had demanded the same. A delegation had even met Vajpayee, but it was found to be a too expensive proposition.

Much to their disappointment, the Prime Minister had initially okayed the names of 10 MPs -- Abha Mahto, Anita Arya, Bhavnaben Chikhalia, Girija Vyas, Kailasho Devi, Krishna Bose, Margaret Alva, Bharati Ray, Joyshree Goswami Mahanta and Savita Sharda.

Apart from the HRD Minister (only one of his officials has been allowed toaccompany him) and the MOS, chief of three NGOs -- Suchitra Mohapatra, general secretary, Anganwadi Union, Veena Nayyar, Women's Watch, and Magha Vadekar, Shivaji Vidyapeeth -- and chairpersons of NCW and CSWB have gone as part of the official delegation.

``This is a much smaller affair than the Beijing conference. There is no scope for accommodating a delegation of 64. As only the leader of the delegation (Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi) has been allotted time to speak,'' a senior official attached to the Minister of State for Women and Child Development Sumitra Mahajan said.

Even the MOS has been given slots for intervention and not a full-fledged speech. The country's paper will be presented by Joshi at the first session which begins tomorrow.