Sonia Gandhi says coalition intact after bill row

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Congress party head Sonia Gandhi said on Tuesday its ruling coalition was intact, despite a key ally breaking ranks to abstain as a bill to reserve a third of parliamentary seats for women was passed by the Rajya Sabha.

Already under fire over issues such as food inflation and a proposed hike in fuel prices, the government has been hit by two days of turmoil trying to push through the legislation.

While the Congress-led coalition still has a majority, the stand-off may give the government less breathing room over key pending economic legislation.

Sonia Gandhi, seen as the country's most influential politician, was asked by reporters whether she was confident in the stability of the government.

"I think so. One can never tell. I am not an astrologer. I wish our former partners remained with us," she said, according to the Press Trust of India.

The bill was passed in an evening vote after a raucous day in the upper house of parliament, but it still needs the approval of the lower house.

"It is a historic occasion, which calls for celebration," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in the upper house where the bill was supported by a majority of opposition parties.

Two regional parties pulled their support on Monday, and on Tuesday the Trinamool Congress party, one of the government's most influential allies, abstained to protest at Congress' handling of the bill and said it would do the same in the lower house.

The Trinamool Congress party, whose leader Mamata Banerjee is the railways minister, said Congress had not properly consulted its ally on pushing through the bill in the upper house in the face of strong opposition from some regional parties.

Detractors say the legislation will be passed at the expense of other disenfranchised minorities such as Muslims, or benefit women already in privileged classes.

Trinamool faces an election in its stronghold state of West Bengal next year where about 20% of voters are Muslims.

The women's bill is a test for Congress, which sees the quota as a cornerstone of its election-winning platform of inclusive growth, but which might lose some political capital needed to push economic reforms and maintain high growth.

The bill, which was first introduced in 1996, is intended to speed up women's empowerment in a country where women lag far behind on many social and health indicators. Women lawmakers and activists shouted "we have made it" outside parliament.

Seven lawmakers were suspended on Tuesday and physically evicted from the house, and the sessions adjourned several times as those against the bill besieged the speaker of the house to shout slogans and stall the debate.