Union Cabinet clears Bill for early implementation of women's quota and delimitation of Lok Sabha seats

The Union Cabinet is learnt to have cleared a Bill seeking to amend the Constitution for early implementation of 33 per cent quota for women in Lok Sabha and Assemblies as well as increasing the number of seats in the Lower House to 816.

The Bill is scheduled to come up for discussion and passage when Parliament's Budget Session reconvenes on April 16. It is to be seen how the Opposition will respond to the proposal of increasing the seats in Lok Sabha from 543 to 816 and earmarking 273 seats for women.

Along with the Constitution amendment bill, another one seeking to amend the Delimitation Act will also be tabled.

Sources said the meeting of the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared the amendments to the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, commonly known as the Women's Reservation Act.

The women's quota law passed in 2023 had prescribed its implementation after a delimitation of seats after a new Census but a proposal recently shared by the government with the Opposition said that a delimitation could be undertaken with Census 2011 as its basis.

The existing law does not allow for its implementation in 2029 Lok Sabha polls, as the Census 2027 data could be made available only later and a Delimitation Commission could complete its job only after 2029.

Congress has already made its objections clear to the proposal claiming that the 50 per cent increase of seats across states would be detrimental to the interests of south India as well as states like Punjab and Haryana. Parties like DMK have also objected to this proposal.

Their argument is that the proposed formula would be skewed in favour of bigger states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar.

Samajwadi Party has already demanded that the implementation of 33% quota should be based on Census 2027, as it would provide the latest demographic data, and not the Census 2011.

The Opposition views the government's sudden move to implement 33% quota, which it was not inclined to while it was being passed three years ago, is to avoid demands for a quota-within-quota for OBCs, as Census 2027 count castes.

They claim that the government is aware that the demand would rise against the backdrop of a caste count.