As it becomes increasingly clear, opposition to women's quota bill is not restricted to the usual suspects--SP, BSP, RJD and a JD(U). In the last two days several BJP MPs have come forward to express their opposition to it. In fact, party's chief whip was quoted by newspapers as saying that nearly 70 percent of the party MPs were against it. Finally, L K Advani had to step in to persuade the dissenting MPs to fall in line. There are rumblings in the Congress too. It is reasonable to expect male members to be wary as they would be losing one-third of the seats in Lok Sabha. Similar situation may arise in state assemblies too.

The question, therefore, is should parties issue whips to force their members to fall in line in a democratic set up like ours? As the sword of anti-defection law hangs over the member, should anyone decide to violate the whip, how democratic will this voting on the quota bill would be. Or for that matter, how democratic was the voting in Rajya Sabha, which passed it a few days ago, when the key players like the Congress and the BJP had issued whips to their members? More over, since this bill doesn't decide fate of the government, unlike the money bills, why should government or the opposition parties dictate how the members should vote? Aren't the parties behaving in undemocratic ways? That is the larger question we address today.