NEW DELHI, MAY 7: With key ally Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) accusing the UPA Government of violating the coalition dharma by “overlooking” its advice before introducing the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said the Bill could not have been introduced had there been no consensus amongst UPA constituents.

The Prime Minister, speaking to media on the sidelines of the Defence Investiture Ceremony, said, “If there was no consensus, we would not have been able to bring the Bill to the House... We have taken the first step but there are concerns about backward communities which need to be discussed.”

Earlier in the day, RJD MP Devendra Prasad Yadav had said that his party could “go to any extent in the larger interest of social justice” and that a “political crisis bigger than the nuclear deal may arise” if the party’s demands were neglected. “If the Government neglects our demand, a political crisis bigger than Indo-US nuclear deal may arise. We may even ask for division in House at the time of passing the Bill for which the Government would be held responsible.”

Yadav also refuted Union Law Minister Hans Raj Bhardwaj’s statement that the decision to bring the Bill to the Rajya Sabha was taken unanimously by the Cabinet. “The Cabinet decision was not unanimous. Our leader Lalu Prasad Yadav had forcefully raised our party’s reservations on the Bill in its current form in the Cabinet meeting. We were told that we will be given a chance to speak at the time of the introduction of the Bill,” Yadav said, adding that the Government had gone against the very ethics of coalition politics by overlooking the advice of the second-biggest party in the coalition.

Yadav added, “We are not concerned about the fate of the Government. We are concerned with our party’s manifesto. We can go to any extent. Quotas within this quota for OBC, SCs, STs and minorities should be ensured.”