Uma's new condition -- Reserve seats for OBCs in women quota

Uma's new condition -- Reserve seats for OBCs in women quota
SHARAD GUPTA

NEW DELHI, OCT 7: Former Union minister Uma Bharti is learnt to have demanded 27 per cent reservation for Other Backward Castes (OBCs) within the quota for women as a precondition to withdrawing her resignation from the Lok Sabha. However, she has reportedly turned down Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's request to rejoin the Union Cabinet.

Bharti is understood to have told Vajpayee about her women quota condition when she met him for over an hour this evening here after returning from the Kedarnath caves. She had `secluded' herself there after her resignation.

``I have submitted a proposal to the Prime Minister and he promised to convey me his reponse by tomorrow morning,'' Bharti told reporters after meeting Vajpayee. She, however, did not reveal the exact contents of her proposal.

Vajpayee is learnt to have told her that he wanted to include her in the Union Cabinet and this was why he had sent Uttar Pradesh Urban Affairs Minister Lalji Tandon to Kedarnath, as his emissary, to bring her to New Delhi. He is supposed to have told her today again that, if she was willing, she could be accommodated in the Cabinet on his return from Mumbai after his knee surgery. But she reportedly declined the offer.

Bharti also denied today being the cliched ``disciplined soldier of the party''. ``I am people's servant first before being a disciplined worker of the BJP who dutifully accepts any responsibility given to her,'' she said, apparently referring to Vajpayee's offer of a Cabinet berth.

Bharti apparently not only wants the Government to change the Women's Reservation Bill (pending in the Lok Sabha) to provide for 27 per cent quota for OBC women but she also wants to move the amendment herself.

Bharti had resigned from the Union Cabinet around three months ago to proceed on an indefinite fast against the Madhya Pradesh government's decision to retrench over 15,000 daily wage employees. She had later resigned from her Lok Sabha seat (Bhopal) as well on not getting ``support'' from the state unit of the BJP on the issue and left for Kedarnath to ``meditate''. The Prime Minister, however, had not accepted her resignation from the Lok Sabha.

While she has consistently been ignoring his and other BJP leaders' appeals to return, she finally decided to do so ostensibly on the orders of her spiritual guru, the Swami of Pejawar Peeth (Udupi), and also because Kedarnath temple was closing on October 15 for the winter.

Accompanied by Uttar Pradesh Minister of Cultural Affairs Ramesh Pokhariyal, she yesterday walked the 8-km stretch from Kedarnath to Kalimath near Rudraprayag. Then, she drove down with him to Pantnagar (Nainital) this morning and flew to Delhi in a state government aircraft.

Asked today whether her return implied a political comeback, Bharti replied: ``I had never taken sanyas from politics since I continued to be a primary member of the BJP even after resigning from the Lok Sabha. My primary aim was social service and it remains so.''