Close to vote, government realised Bill would fall, put the onus on Opposition
NDA leader says government prepared to let Bills be defeated, project itself as “martyr” in the cause of women's rights.
The Constitutional amendment Bills in the three-Bill legislative package, which are crucial to the early implementation of the women’s reservation law. (PTI Photo) HOURS before the Constitutional amendment Bill providing for women’s reservation and delimitation was put to vote in the Lok Sabha, it was pretty much clear to the government it did not have the support of enough MPs in the House for the required two-thirds majority of those present. But BJP leaders and sources in the government told The Indian Express they would not withdraw the Bill at this point; they would rather have it fall at the hands of the Opposition.
In a last-ditch attempt to salvage the Bill, the ruling party did make attempts to reach out to the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party and some other Opposition parties during the day. They seemed to think sections within the Opposition would support the Bill when it is brought to vote, worried about facing questions during elections.
But there was unanimity within the INDIA bloc and the Congress party communicated to all that the Bill had to be stopped under all circumstances. And during voting, it was not just the Congress but even the Trinamool Congress, whose MPs were seen actively managing the floor ensuring all votes are cast, and cast in the right manner.
Although the BJP managed to keep the NDA flock together, the party, which is known for its strategising and manoeuvring to push its legislative agenda, could not break the Opposition.
In the final tally, the NDA, which already has 293 members, could muster a total of only five extra votes. Four of these five came from YSRCP, a party which has backed the BJP on key bills in the past. This underlined a rare show of total unity by the Opposition which culminated in the first ever Bill brought by the Narendra Modi regime falling in Parliament.
Sources said this was also the first Constitution Amendment bill to fall in Parliament after 2012. The Constitution (116th Amendment) Bill, 2011, which sought to give constitutional status to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas had failed to pass Lok Sabha muster in 2012 during the UPA regime.
With regard to the latest Constitution amendment Bill, the Opposition believed the women’s reservation pitch was just a facade; the real intention was to increase the number of Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in states, and then delimitation, i.e., redrawing these based on population. So, any outreach by the ruling NDA was spurned by the INDIA bloc.
Both the ruling party and the Opposition thus stuck to their positions.
In this backdrop, BJP leaders and ministers huddled together in a meeting held by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Parliament to deliberate on the strategy ahead with regard to the Bill. “Let the Opposition defeat the Bill. They will have to answer the people,” said a senior BJP leader, who did not wish to be named a few hours before the Bill was put to vote.
Another minister, holding a Cabinet portfolio, said that the party would “go to the people” and tell how the INDIA bloc “betrayed the women”. The idea was to let the Bill be defeated and then become a ‘martyr’ in the cause of women’s rights before the people. “The defeat of the Bill can be weaponised politically against the Opposition,” the leader said.
As the leaders indicated, following the defeat of the Bill and the adjournment of the house, women MPs of the BJP came towards the Makar Dwar of the Parliament building and raised slogans against the Congress calling it “a mahila vidrohi party”. NDA leaders put up a brave face and said a massive campaign would be unveiled soon to set a narrative of “exposing” the opposition.
“We will be going for a door-to-door campaign. We will expose those who betrayed the women of this country and we will tell them how the Congress has scuttled Modiji’s attempts to give women their rights,” said Anil Baluni, Lok Sabha MP and BJP’s Media in Charge.
Besides upsetting many women leaders who had come from different states to the national capital, the failure of the government in mustering the numbers in the Lok Sabha has disappointed party MPs.
What NDA decided
In a meeting of NDA leaders chaired by Leader of the Rajya Sabha J P Nadda in Parliament House building immediately after the voting, it was decided to launch a massive campaign over the women’s reservation bill. Sources said that with the leaders suggesting various tools, including house visits and an aggressive social media campaign, the BJP is expected to prepare a campaign plan and convey this to its allies in a day or two.
But all this strategy notwithstanding, overtures were made to some parties in the run-up to the crucial voting. The Opposition, however, was united. “It has been decided that the delimitation needs to be deferred. So there is no question of agreeing to this Bill even if the promise of proportionality and pro-rata distribution of increased seats among states is believed and accepted. We know why they want delimitation,” a senior leader from the Opposition said.
Prodded by K C Venugopal of the Congress, Amit Shah did try to take on the Opposition on its demand that Lok Sabha seats in states should be increased in the same proportion as it existed today. “If you agree to pass the Bill, I can get an amendment to the Bill stating that the percentage share of states in the enhanced Lok Sabha would be the same as it is now,” Shah said, but added that he would not take the Congress’s bait of using Census 2026 data for delimitation.
At the heart of the legislation is the contentious issue of delimitation—the redrawing of Lok Sabha constituencies based on population. The current freeze on delimitation, in place since the 1970s to avoid penalising states that successfully controlled population growth, is set to end after the first Census conducted post-2026.
The government’s push has been to delink women’s reservation from this timeline by enabling an earlier delimitation exercise, thereby operationalising the 33% quota for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. The Opposition, however, has argued that any such move could alter the federal balance and disproportionately increase the representation of northern states.
Share
