Women’s Reservation Bill introduced in Lok Sabha; to be discussed tomorrow

Twenty-seven years after the first unsuccessful attempt to get the Women’s Reservation Bill passed by the Parliament, the Narendra Modi government on Tuesday introduced a constitutional amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha to reserve 33 per cent of total seats in the lower house of the Parliament and state assemblies for women.

The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty Eighth Amendment) Bill 2023 will be taken up for discussion in Lok Sabha on Wednesday – seven hours have been allocated and is likely to be passed during the day itself. The Rajya Sabha may take up the Bill the next day. Sonia Gandhi, who has advocated for the legislation in the past, will be the Congress’s lead speaker in Lok Sabha.

Just after the Parliamentarians moved to the new Parliament building, Union Law Minister Arjun Meghwal sought permission from the chair to introduce the proposed statute. The provisions of the Bill will come into effect after the next delimitation exercise based on the decennial census, which is yet to be taken up.

The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhineeyum proposes that the reservation for women will continue for a period of 15 years, with a separate quota for SC/STs women. After 15 years, the seats reserved for women will be rotated during every subsequent delimitation exercise. While introducing the Bill, Meghwal said that after the Bill is implemented, the number of women members in the Lok Sabha will rise to 181; currently there are 82 MPs in the Parliament.

If passed, it would be the first law enacted in the new Parliament building inaugurated earlier this year. While speaking ahead of the introduction of the Bill, the prime minister said the government wants more women to join the development process of the country.

“There have been many efforts; earlier in 1996, the first bill was introduced. During Atal Behari Vajpayee’s tenure, many times, the Women’s Reservation Bill was brought, but numbers could not be mustered for it and the dream was left unfulfilled. For ensuring the rights of women and putting their power to use, God has chosen me. This date of September 19 is going to be etched in history,” he said.

In the Rajya Sabha, he urged that the Bill be passed unanimously.

The Modi government would pitch this bill to reach out to women voters while the Opposition plans to counter it by talking about the delay in its implementation. The government expects that the women’s quota will be in place by 2029 but the Opposition is skeptical, claiming the whole exercise may overshoot the deadline and could be a reality only in 2034.

Union home minister Amit Shah said the introduction of the Bill shows the “unwavering commitment” of the Modi Government to empower women.

“Sadly, the Opposition is unable to digest this. And, what is more shameful is that except tokenism, the Congress has never been serious about women’s reservation. Either they let legislation lapse or their friendly parties prevented the Bill from being tabled. Their double standards will never be hidden, whatever stunts they try to take credit,” Shah said.

Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said, “in a season of election jumlas, this one is the biggest of them all. A huge betrayal of the hopes of crores of Indian women and girls.” Ahead of the proceedings of the day, Sonia Gandhi asserted that it was the Congress’s legislation. “It is ours, apna hai,” she told reporters.

The 2010 legislation introduced by the Manmohan Singh government also sought to amend Article 330 of the Constitution to reserve one-third of all seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies, including a third of seats for SC/ST, it did not make mention of the delimitation process.

The reservation in the 2023 legislation makes no mention of reserving seats for Anglo-India nominated members, since that was abolished in 2019.