New York, New York, cry women MPs

New York, New York, cry women MPs
ARATI R JERATH

NEW DELHI, MAY 13: Women MPs are on the prowl for a ticket to New York this summer. The occasion is a jamboree to beat all others, the United Nations ``Beijing 5'' conference at which every woman who is any woman will congregate from June 5 to June 9 to rap about the five years since they last met in the Chinese Capital.

The problem is the Vajpayee Government's ``tightfistedness'' in these days of fiscal squeeze. Where the Narasimha Rao Government, in a fit of unusual generosity, had sent a jumbo delegation of 64 women Parliamentarians to Beijing, the Vajpayee Government has clamped down and chosen a select party of just 10 for New York.

But where there's a will, there's a way. And yesterday, a group of women MPs descended on Lok Sabha Speaker GMC Balayogi to bulldoze him into getting Parliament to sponsor all those left out of the government list.

With 48 women MPs in the Lok Sabha and 22 in the Rajya Sabha, it may prove to be a stupendous task to get the entire lot to New York at such short notice. But Balayogi is chivalrously making a valiant attempt and may even be coerced into leading virtually an all-woman delegation to the US city. It would add stature to the team, the chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Women, Margaret Alva, is supposed to have told him.

While the modalities of accommodating all 70 MPs are still being worked out, it looks as if several delegations will be on their way to New York next month. One is the official group, chosen by Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi. This includes Alva, Krishna Bose, Girija Vyas, Anita Arya, Abha Manto, Bharati Ray, Joyasree Mahanta, Savita Sharda, Bhavnaben Chikhalia and Kailasho Devi. Joshi himself is slated to lead this lot which will include Minister of State for Women and Child Development Sumitra Mahajan.

Another will head for the US on behalf of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) which is hosting a simultaneous session on man-woman partnership in politics. The rest are likely to go as representatives of various non-governmental organisations which will be present on the fringes of the main conference.

The IPU session will be a specialised followup conference to the 1997 one held in New Delhi. The place of honour, of course, belongs to Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Najma Heptullah who is the current IPU President.