The seminar organised by a women's organisation had speakers Prime Minister A B Vajpayee and former prime minister I K Gujral and Jayalalitha contributing nothing new to the ongoing debate on the need for women's reservation in politics.

Instead, the seminar gave Jayalalitha a good opportunity to blow her own trumpet. ``The AIADMK has the privilege of being the first political party in the democratic world to reserve one-third of the organisational posts of office-bearers of the party for women... I hope that all recognised political parties in India will follow the example set by the AIADMK and reserve one-third of their organisational posts for women,'' she said.Her party people ensured that everyone in the audience got a four-page note which gave the number ofwomen office-bearers (36,190) from the panchayat level upwards to the general council of the party. ``It will be seen that instead of it being a ceiling, 33.3 per cent is a floor for the AIADMK, as the proportion is in most cases more representative of the actual percentage of women in the population,'' it disclosed.

Jayalalitha held forth on democracy in party organisation while all her AIADMK ministers in the Vajpayee Government and her MPs showed their willingness to applaud their puratchi thalaivi (revolutionary leader).''Jayalalitha did not miss out on hitting out at the rival DMK, and said: ``When I was in power in Tamil Nadu between 1991 and 1996, the Government made an attempt to set right some of the immense backlog of gender injustice. Sadly, that momentum got reversed after the 1996 Assembly elections.''

These elections, held simultaneously with polls to the Lok Sabha, saw the AIADMK get its worst drubbing. The party had to wait till the early 1998 edition of the general elections to retrievelost ground.

Given the nature of the AIADMK's blow-hot, blow-cold vibes with the BJP, Vajpayee didn't seem to want to take chances. ``You are aware that two of our alliance parties--the AIADMK and the Trinamool Congress--are headed by women leaders. Both Dr Jayalalitha and Sushree Mamata Banerjee are leaders with exceptional mass appeal. Today, they are playing an important role in national politics.'' The AIADMK chief couldn't conceal a smile.

Gujral did some plainspeak. ``We have not gone beyond promises,'' he said, on the issue of a quota in Parliament and State Assemblies for women. ``At the moment it is charade,'' he remarked, adding that he as a politician had enough reason to be embarrassed.