Why Modi government faces hurdles in fresh push for women’s quota Bill

This means the NDA needs backing from more parties, either through support or through significant abstentions that would reduce the two-thirds mark in both Houses. For this, the Bills to be introduced should unequivocally fulfil the demands of the parties opposed to it.

The demand of the DMK, which has 22 Lok Sabha MPs, has been to continue with the status quo on the allocation of seats in the Lower House through an extension of the freeze on delimitation. The party had aggressively opposed the Centre in the run-up to the recent Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, with its president and then chief minister M K Stalin warning that the state would not tolerate any imposition from Delhi. But there are indications that its aggression vis-a-vis the BJP has been diluted after the rise of C Joseph Vijay’s TVK to power and the subsequent changes in the state’s political equations.

Asked about the DMK’s present position, party MP Tiruchi Siva told The Indian Express, “It would be speculative to say anything until there is a proposal to look at.”

A source in the Narendra Modi government had told reporters in June that the Centre would bring a new Bill whenever it had the numbers to pass a constitutional amendment legislation.

During the Budget Session of Parliament earlier this year, the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill to amend the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023, to expedite women’s reservation in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies had fallen for want of numbers, and the accompanying Delimitation Bill that required a simple majority was subsequently not taken up.

At that time, while Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said the proportion of seats allocated to states would not change at the time of the Lok Sabha’s expansion – the government had said each state would gain 50% seats – this was not mentioned in the Bills circulated. The Opposition came together and the government fell short of the numbers to pass the constitutional amendment Bill.

The statement of objects and reasons of this constitutional amendment Bill noted that the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023, had laid down that women’s reservation would be implemented following delimitation on the basis of the first Census after the Act was passed. However, as this would delay the process given the Census is still in its early stages, the 2026 Bill stated that it aimed to operationalise women’s reservation following delimitation on the basis of the 2011 Census.

Constitutional hurdles

The Bill, however, did not propose to amend the “one-person, one-vote, one-value” principle enshrined in Article 81 (2) (a) of the Constitution, which says, “There shall be allotted to each state a number of seats in the House of the People in such manner that the ratio between that number and the population of the state is, so far as practicable, the same for all States.”

The only exception the Article makes to the norm of population-based delimitation is for very small states with a population not exceeding 60 lakh, so they can still be adequately represented in the Lower House despite their small population.

In other words, had the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill been passed, a Delimitation Commission would have to go by the population figures of 2011, by which time the population of states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar had grown by much more than states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, compared to the 1971 Census – the population level at which the inter-state allocation of seats has been frozen for 50 years now.

The first freeze on the allocation of seats through delimitation came in 1976 and was in place for 25 years. The second freeze took place under then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2001, and it was laid down that the freeze would expire once the data of the first Census after 2026 were out. So, unless the freeze is extended again, the next delimitation will be mandated as soon as the ongoing Census figures are published as per the population principle in Article 81, unless a constitutional amendment is passed to break with population-based delimitation.

A fresh constitutional amendment Bill is thus likely to get support from parties outside the NDA if it extends the freeze through an amendment to Article 81, by changing the 2026 deadline to a date a few decades away.

Where the Centre could get wider support on the 2011 Census figures, as proposed in its constitutional amendment earlier, is in the context of delimitation of constituencies within each state. The principle here is provided in Article 81 (2) (b): “Each state shall be divided into territorial constituencies in such manner that the ratio between the population of each constituency and number of seats allotted to it is, so far as practicable, the same throughout the state.”

At present, Article 81 has based this intra-state delimitation on the 2001 Census. The next Bill the Centre brings could change the reference from the 2001 Census to the 2011 Census with a two-thirds majority in both Houses to ensure intra-state delimitation as per currently available Census figures.