Resistance is growing among the Opposition parties against The Prohibition of Child Marriage (A) Bill that seeks to increase the legal age for marriage for women from 18 to 21 times. The Congress is questioning the government’s provocation in bringing such a legislation, the Left parties are rejecting it on the grounds that it encroaches on women’s autonomy to decide and the Muslim parties & groups see it as an attempt to undermine the Muslim particular law.
The bill is likely to be moved in the last four days of the Winter Session of Parliament Congress General Secretary (Organisation)K.C. Venugopal, said that no political party is opposed to bringing gender equality and working for the women’s rights, but at the same time, he questioned the government’s intention in bringing this law. He asked, “ Can the government deliver women’s rights simply by framing a law, without any accompanying infrastructural, fiscal and social support?”
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The party, however, has not held any formal consultations on the issue, sources said. It has also not yet figured out its stage within the Parliament especially if the bill comes up for vote. The party interposers said that taking a nuanced position, the Congress will push the bill to be transferred to a Administrative commission for a near scrutiny.
.The Trinamool Congress which is the second largest opposition party in Rajya Sabha with 13 MPs and third largest party in Lok Sabha with 22 MPs too has not yet formed an opinion on the issue. Numerous of its leaders feel that it’s tricky terrain to negotiate. “ The bill has not been circulated so far, we will have to read it and consult our leader Mamata Banerjee before taking a position,” a elderly Trinamool leader said The DMK so far has not yet made a public statement on the issue. The government however can count on support from BJD and YSR Congress YSR Congress’s Lok Sabha bottom leader Mithun Reddy told The Hindu, “ The YSR Congress has always stood for women’s rights. Indeed without a formal law, 50 per cent of our campaigners for the original bodies choices were women. We’ll drink the bill.”
The Left parties who have seven members in Rajya Sabha and five in Lok Sabha have taken a more stridentstand.However, also why not their unborn mate, “ If a person can choose their MP or MLA at 18. The argument that the change will bring gender equality is also fallacious, because if that was the case, the legal age for men should have been brought down,” they said. “ The government needs to explain the provocation and the environment under which they’ve brought this bill. There were no consultations with the political parties or women groups. In a country like the United Kingdom, where the women are far better placed than then, the legal age is 18 and with concurrence of guardians, girls can marry at 16- times too,” CPI (M) Parliamentary Party leader Elamaram Kareem said.
The IUML has indicted the government of packaging the law in a progressive garb to chip sluggishly down at the Muslim Personal Law. The IUML’s Rajya Sabha MP Abdul Wahab moved an adjournment notice on Friday criminating the government of inching on the Muslim Personal Law through this legislation. AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi on Friday through a series of tweets had slammed the government saying that it’s displaying “ typical paternalism that we’ve come to anticipate” from the central government. He editorialized that both men and women should be allowed to get fairly married at 18, the age at which they can choose lawgivers and are treated as grown-ups by law for all other purposes.
