To avoid this, the regional parties want quotas for the OBCs within the 33 percent quota while Mayawati is in favour of raising the reservations to 50 percent.

Considering that this tussle between the regional and 'national' parties like the Congress and the BJP has stalled any progress on the measure for more than a decade, it will be naive to expect any forward movement this time even if a special session of parliament is called, as the Communist Party of India (CPI) has demanded.

Apart from the various demands and objections, the main reason why no progress has been made is that there has been no serious attempt to evolve a consensus on the subject. And the reason for this failure is that cynical calculations guide the parties with an eye on the electorate even as they pay lip service to women's empowerment.

Even the latest move falls in this category since the Congress waited till the very last year of its term before introducing the bill when there is little chance of it passing through parliament. The only positive aspect is that it will not lapse like the earlier measures with the dissolution of parliament since it has now been tabled in the Rajya Sabha.

But no one knows when, or whether, it will be taken up by the next parliament. If the parties have been reluctant to push through the legislation, the reason is not only the demand for caste-based quotas but also the unexpressed disquiet in the male-dominated political class of losing its pre-eminence to women.

There are practical fears, too, like a male MP or MLA losing his constituency if it is allotted to women. To remove this apprehension, a suggestion of rotating the allocations was made.

But the difficulty with such a step is that it will dissuade a legislator from nursing his or her seat if he or she is not sure of contesting from there in the future.