7 min readApr 14, 2026 06:17 AM IST
First published on: Apr 14, 2026 at 06:17 AM IST
It’s a Trojan horse. That’s one thing we can be sure of about the proposed special session of Parliament, hastily scheduled for April 16-18, to “discuss and pass an important Bill that advances women’s reservation”. The context and the timing tell us that it is about anything but nari shakti. Advancing women’s reservation is a ploy to advance the delimitation of constituencies and thus advance the political prospects of the ruling dispensation. Notwithstanding the “top-dressing”, to borrow Babasaheb’s evocative phrase, it is about tilting the institutional architecture of electoral democracy to favour the ruling party.
Oddly, we do not yet know what this “important Bill” is. We are told the Bill has been cleared by the cabinet. Yet its text has not been shared with the public, not even with parliamentarians. We are told that the government is going to propose a constitutional amendment to modify the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill of 2023, regarding reservation for women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies. On the face of it, this modification would enable women’s reservation to be operational from the next Lok Sabha election in 2029. But here is the catch: This will be linked to allowing fresh delimitation based on the Census of 2011. And expanding the size of the Lok Sabha by one-and-a-half times, with a proportionate increase in the share of seats for each state.
It is not hard to see through the official rhetoric. The PM’s op-ed (‘We owe it to nari shakti to come together to advance women’s representation’, IE, April 9) assures us that the Bill is going to be “a reflection of the aspirations of crores of women across India” but does not tell us why an expression of their aspirations must be hidden from crores of women. He is emphatic that this moment “cannot be deferred any longer”. But he does not tell us why his own government deferred it through the amendment in 2023. Why could it be deferred for the 2024 polls but not for the 2029 Lok Sabha elections?
He recalls the “spirit of consensus” during the passage of the 2023 amendment and urges support from all parliamentarians across party lines. But he does not tell us why he has not agreed to a simple suggestion of an all-party meeting in this spirit of consensus. He does not tell us why this session must be convened just a week before assembly polls in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
The move reeks of cynicism. The idea is to use “femocratic” legitimation for ulterior motives. The strategy is to wrong-foot the Opposition into seeming to be opposing the women’s cause, thereby gaining a narrative advantage in the ongoing assembly polls. Or worse, it is a tactical move to force the Opposition leaders and MPs from these states to abandon the election campaign at its peak. This is political hubris at its worst, supremely confident that basic questions cannot be asked, and need not be answered.
The simple fact is that we do already have a constitutional provision to reserve one-third of seats for women. It suffered from serious flaws. It did not even specify that these seats would be distributed across states. And it persisted with the idea of geographical reservation of constituencies, not the best way to enhance women’s representation. Yet it operationalised the long-felt need for better political representation of women.
It could have been implemented from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. That is what many Opposition leaders demanded. But the government inserted a strange and needless condition. This provision would come into force only after the next delimitation, post the redrawing of constituency boundaries after the next Census. Another constitutional amendment had already linked the next delimitation to the Census after 2026. So, a double deferral was built into women’s reservation — it first needed a new census and then a fresh delimitation. In 2023 it seemed that the post-2026 Census meant that the Census would be held in 2031. Going by the usual time span of two-three years for delimitation, it seemed clear that women’s reservation was not coming into force before 2039. The amendment carried a double assurance: It assured women that they would eventually get their one-third share and it assured male leaders that this would not happen in their career span.
If the government has now woken up to advancing the implementation of women’s reservation, it should be welcomed. If that is truly the intent, Parliament needs to bring a simple constitutional amendment— just repeal Article 334 A(1), which linked women’s reservation to the Census and delimitation. It could insert an enabling provision providing for the fixing of seats for women by a draw of lots and it could be implemented in the 2029 elections. And if the government and Opposition are serious about their commitment to the OBCs, the existing provision for cross-cutting reservation for the SCs and STs within the one-third quota for women could be extended to the OBCs as well.
This is unlikely to happen. The real intent is to push the Opposition into agreeing to a fresh delimitation that bypasses the existing constitutional provision that prohibits new delimitation before the official data for the 2027 Census are available. It’s not about advancing women’s reservation, but about advancing delimitation in time for the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, something the BJP desperately wants. The new Bill may provide for retaining the existing allocation of seats for different states or expanding them, say, by 50 per cent in the existing proportion. That would increase the numerical difference between Hindi-speaking and non-Hindi states and alter the nature of the shouting matches that pass for parliamentary debates. But it would not disturb the regional balance. It would still require the redrawing of all boundaries before 2029. And if the recent experience of Assam and J&K is anything to go by, it opens the possibility of nationwide gerrymandering of boundaries to tilt the scales in favour of the BJP for the coming Lok Sabha elections. That may be the real reason for the push for early delimitation.
If the proposed Bill provides for delimitation based on population proportions in the Census of 2011, it could abrogate the unwritten federal compact that holds the Indian Union together. Either way, the rush does not augur well. This fits in perfectly with the ruling dispensation’s attempt to change the desh, kaal and patra of electoral democracy to ensure a permanent majority for itself.
The writer is member, Swaraj India, and national convenor, Bharat Jodo Abhiyaan. Views are personal
