Corporators plan to field wives from reserved seats; experts think actual purpose of Women's Reservation Bill will be lost this way

Don't be surprised if you see your local corporator happily relinquishing his seat and aggressively canvassing for another candidate ufffd his better half ufffd during the civic polls early next year. With the Maharashtra Legislative Council unanimously passing the historic Bill providing 50 per cent reservation for women in the local bodies, incumbent corporators and political leaders have already started mulling the option of fielding their wives from seats, which could be declared reserved under the new rule.

It will take some more time before the Bill becomes a law after the Governor's approval, but most corporators ufffd anticipating that their seats would be converted to reserved ones ufffd are wasting no time. They have already decided to field their wives to hold onto the hot seat, albeit indirectly. According to political experts, history has it that whenever an incumbent corporator loses his seat to reservation, he fields his wife. During the Kalyan and Dombivali civic body elections, nearly half a dozen candidates had fielded their wives from their seats.

Reins of power
Jose George, professor of political science, University of Mumbai, said, "Whenever such a law comes into existence, people tend to field their wives, daughters, mothers and any other women members of their family to keep the reins of power. This trend will be seen at least for two to three elections, and only after that the real women politicians would come to the fore."

Even political parties seem to be agreeing with George. Congress spokesperson Anant Gadgil said, "In many cases, the sitting candidate sees to it that the seat goes to his family members in his absence. But this defeats the whole cause, as the basic idea is to give women more strength."

During the KDMC election, the then mayor Ramesh Jadhav had fielded his wife from his seat as it was reserved for women and he contested from another. Janardan Mhatre, a Sena corporator fielded his wife when seat was converted into a reserved one, said, "Whatever development you can see in the constituency, it is done by me. How can I let go my strong hold?"

Bharat Kumar Raut, senior Sena leader, was of the opinion that mostly men handle the affairs in the name their wives or female relatives. "This is a general phenomenon that whenever such a thing comes up, mostly men rule from behind the scene and the women is merely a representative," he said, adding that he won't allow candidates fielding their wives from their seats.

He went on, "We are the only party that has very organised women cadres. I am sure such problems won't arise in our party." A sitting corporator from BMC, on condition of anonymity, agreed that he would put in all his efforts to get a seat for his wife if his seat converted into a reserved one.

Shishir Shinde MNS MLA, who had fielded his wife from Mulund as the seat was reserved for women during BMC election in 2007, said, "I don't think people will field their wives this time. Even if they do the number will be fewer."

All in the family?
Asked why he fielded his wife last time, he said, "There was a shortage of women candidates that time, but now we have several women cadres. However, there is no denying that political families would like their heirs to assume the hot seat, but it would be only at the initial stages. But things would change soon, and it will benefit the women and empower them in the long run," he said.

Strong candidates
The BJP claims that they already have made arrangements for women candidates. But still there might be some cases whey could be forced to give tickets to the wives of incumbent corporators. "We have a strong women brigade in our party. We have always been following the rule that minimum 50 per cent party posts are given to female. However, there might be some seats, where finding a women candidate may be a bit difficult. In such a situation, we might have to give seats to the family members of a sitting corporator," said Vivekanand Gupta, secretary, Mumbai BJP.u00a0u00a0

Seats in the house
There are 227 seats in the BMC, which goes to poll early next year. Of the total seats, Shiv Sena has 84 seats, Congress 71, BJP 28, NCP 14, Samajwadi Party 8 and MNS 7.