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After packing off Anupam Kher from the chairmanship of the Censor Board, the UPA government removed three members of the National Commission for Women (NCW), also appointees of the NDA government. It reconstituted the commission with five new members.
Sources said orders for the premature termination of services of Nirmala Seetaraman, Unusuiya Uike and Nafisa Hussein were issued by the Ministry for Human Resource Development (HRD). Two other members, Sudha Mallaya and Baby Rami Maurya, had recently retired from the commission, headed by Congress leader Girija Vyas.
The new members are from the UPA stock, including one from the CPI. Malini Bhattacharya, former MP, is from CPI while the others are Yasmeen Abrar, former Congress legislator from Rajasthan, Sushila Triya, former Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Orissa, Mottamma, CWC member (Bangalore) and Neeva Komwar, vice-president Mahila Congress, from Assam.
Girija Vyas, who is in Himachal Pradesh, told this website’s newspaper that ‘‘it was the prerogative of the HRD ministry to constitute the commission''.
She said she had no role in the removal of members. Seetaraman expressed surprise over the move while sources said it was for the first time that NCW members' tenure was cut short for political reasons.
Next on the UPA's purge list, sources
said, is the National Commission for Minorities. However, that is likely
to be done more discreetly through the passage of a new bill that would
ensure a more empowered commission and would disband the existing one without
causing red faces. Sources said the bill for the new NCM, which would have
powers of a court, was ready and likely to be placed before Parliament
during the Monsoon session.
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