Lucknow:
Even after it is passed in the Rajya Sabha, there still are concerns over how exactly the Women's Reservation Bill will work in practice.
Take the example of Uttar Pradesh. The state may be run by a woman Chief Minister, but look around a little more and 'aam aurat's names start to vanish from politics.
The four main political parties - Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Congress and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) - put together have just 24 women MLAs in the state Assembly. This is just six per cent representation.
And of the women politicians, 70 per cent of them have some political connection. Like SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law, Dimple Yadav.
The BSP has 12 women MLAs. Of these eight come from a political background. Similarly, half of SP's women MLAs have political connections. And all five of BJP's women MLAs are from political families.
Also, the lone Congress MLA, Amita Singh from Sultanpur, is former minister Sanjay Singh's wife.
And for outsiders like Madhumita Shukla, the poetess who was murdered by politician Amarmani Tripathi, or Kavita Chaudhary who was found murdered after a sex-scandal sting operation on a minister, the price they pay could be too high.
It is ironical that the two major parties in Uttar Pradesh - the BSP and the SP - are opposed to the Women's Reservation Bill is a state which has such a dismal record of women's representation in politics.