In a major embarrassment for the Union Government, a Constitution Amendment Bill to implement 33 per cent reservation for women in 2029 and increase the number of Lok Sabha seats to 816 was defeated on Friday, with the ruling dispensation asserting that the struggle to give rights to women will continue. This was for the first time a bill under the BJP-led Government was defeated in the Parliament.
While 298 members voted in support of the bill in the Lok Sabha, 230 MPs voted against it. The bill required 352 votes for a two-third majority. While the opposition called it their triumph, ruling leaders remarked it’s a blessing in disguise, which gives the latter an opportunity to label the Congress-led Opposition as anti-women.
Home Minister Amit Shah blamed the Congress, the TMC, the DMK, and the Samajwadi Party for not allowing its passage. He said after the bill was defeated, the Opposition parties were celebrating and raising victory cries, which is beyond imagination and condemnable.
A day after his speech in Lok Sabha, followed by Rajya Sabha on Friday, PM Modi had urged all Lok Sabha MPs to vote in favour of the bill and said the time has come to ensure that half of the nation’s population receives its rightful due in decision-making. He urged all members not to do anything that may hurt the sentiments of women across India.
“I would like to appeal to all members of Parliament... Please reflect upon your conscience, remembering the women in your own families. Please do not deprive our Nari Shakti of new opportunities,” Modi had said.
Shah said this “insult to the women of the country will not stop here but will travel far and wide”. “The opposition will have to face the wrath of women not only in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, but at every level, in every election, and at every place,” he said.
According to the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, Lok Sabha seats were to be increased to 816 from the current 543 following a delimitation exercise based on the 2011 Census to operationalise the women’s reservation law before the 2029 parliamentary polls. Seats were also to be increased in state and Union territory assemblies to accommodate 33 per cent reservation for women.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior ministers Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi were among those present during the voting.
After the legislation was defeated during the voting, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla adjourned the House for the day and announced that it would meet again on Saturday. The three-day special sitting was convened from April 16 to 18 for getting the Parliament’s approval to the bill.
When the Constitution Amendment Bill was defeated, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju conveyed to the Speaker that the government has no intention to move ahead with the two other bills -- the Delimitation Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill -- as both the legislations were interlinked with the Constitution Amendment Bill.
Rijiju said the Opposition lost a historic opportunity to honour the country’s women but the Modi government’s struggle to give rights to women will continue. “We will not take rest till we ensure that the country’s women get reservation in legislatures,” he said.
“Now, the women of the country will not get the 33 per cent reservation in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, which was their right. The Congress and its allies have done this not for the first time, but repeatedly. Their mindset is neither in the interest of women nor of the country,” Amit Shah said in a social media post.
Earlier, in a bid to get the bill passed, while replying to the two-day long debate, Shah assured the opposition of an official amendment mentioning a 50 per cent increase in Lok Sabha seats in all states and Union territories if the opposition parties support the women’s reservation bill.
“If anyone hears this discussion carefully, one will realise that nobody opposed the constitutional amendment for women’s reservation. Everyone said ‘we welcome this move’. But all the members of the INDIA group clearly opposed women’s reservation,” Shah said. The home minister said the Constitution provides for periodic delimitation and that includes provisions for increasing the SC and ST seats in proportion to their growing population.
The home minister also said that there are 127 seats where there are more than 20 lakh voters and it goes against the spirit of the principle of ‘one person, one vote and one value’.
“At some places, 45 lakh voters have one representative, and at some places, six lakh voters have one representative. As a result, the value of each vote is not equal across constituencies,” he said, adding therefore there was a need for rationalisation of voters in every constituency.
Shah also dismissed the claim that the Constitution amendment bill brought for providing women reservation in legislatures was aimed at delaying caste enumeration during census. “A meeting of the Union Cabinet in 2025 decided to carry out caste enumeration along with the census exercise and the process has already started,” he said.
