‘Hail the Constitution’: Opposition rejoices as Bill to tweak women’s quota law is defeated in LS

In another post, he said, “The south stood united and made its voice heard. Democracy prevailed. We never opposed delimitation. We asked for fairness, for a process that is consulted, thought through, and agreed upon … every time the federal spirit of India is tested, Tamil Nadu will rise united and unwavering. My sincere thanks to all opposition parties who stood united.”

In a third post on X, Stalin added, “We want the Women’s Reservation Bill to be implemented NOW. Tamil Nadu was among the earliest to implement reservation for women in local bodies. Our concern is with delimitation, which requires careful thought to ensure it is fair, especially for southern states … Women across India are not a vote bank. They are watching.”

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav said the BJP’s “deceitful chariot” has been stopped once again. “Now they’ll say their efforts fell short,” said the former UP CM.

“Delimitation Bill fails in Parliament. Modi ji’s arrogance suffers a defeat. The countdown for the Modi government begins,” Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal wrote on X.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah “tried to carry out delimitation by using half the country’s population as a shield”. “(They) made a nefarious attempt to harm this country’s democracy, Constitution, and federalism,” he said.

Thanking Opposition leaders, the Congress president said, “Their cunning ploy was sniffed out by a united Opposition … Modi-Shah had set out to destroy India’s democracy just to polish their politics, but this conspiracy of theirs has now fallen flat on its face.”

Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy said April 17 would be remembered forever as a “Red-letter Day” in the country’s history, while the Congress’s communications chief, Jairam Ramesh, said, “This is a win for our democracy, our federalism, and the Constitution.”

Moments after voting concluded, Rahul Gandhi and Abhishek Banerjee spoke over the phone, with sources telling The Indian Express that the LoP thanked the TMC leader for playing a “crucial role” in the outcome in the Lok Sabha. Gandhi, it is learnt, lauded Banerjee, the TMC’s parliamentary party leader, for sending several of the party’s Lok Sabha MPs to Delhi amid the election campaign in West Bengal. The TMC leader told Gandhi that it “seems the tides are turning against the BJP now”, sources said.

“The fallout from the defeat of the Delimitation Bill in the Lok Sabha is exposing the BJP’s discomfort for all to see,” Banerjee later posted on X. “The NDA government is clearly on borrowed time and the illusion of control is beginning to crumble in plain sight!”

The TMC’s Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha, Sagarika Ghose, hailed the “historic defeat” of the government’s “devious attempt” to “undermine federalism”.

“This was never about women’s reservation. It was only about the BJP’s ‘nara shakti (slogan power)’ and not about ‘nari shakti (women’s power)’,” she told The Indian Express.

CPI(M)’s Rajya Sabha floor leader John Brittas told Express that “the BJP government’s attempt to use delimitation as a tool to undermine India’s democracy and federal structure” had been defeated. “The government unilaterally convened special sittings of Parliament in the middle of state elections, apparently hoping to divide the opposition while shielding itself behind the women’s reservation issue,” he said.

CPI’s floor leader in the Rajya Sabha, P Sandosh Kumar, told Express that the “BJP’s anti-federal Bill failing to secure a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha is a clear political setback for the Modi government”.