‘Can support women quota Bill’

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has been opposing the long pending women reservation Bill, on Friday said his party could consider supporting it if Dalits, Muslims and backward class were also taken care of under its ambit. "I have opposed the Bill earlier.... It has been amended and if Dalits, Muslims and backward class are taken care of in it, we can consider supporting it," Yadav told reporters here on the sidelines of a function. "We always feel that men and women should work shoulder to shoulder but women are still suppressed in the society," he said.

Yadav, on Thursday at a meeting in Barabanki, had opposed the Bill saying it will benefit only the affluent class and those belonging to weaker sections will be further suppressed. The Bill, proposing 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and Assemblies, was passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2010. The SP, the RJD and the JD(U) had opposed to the Bill.

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