Government sends feelers to Opposition on women’s quota law implementation
“We will not announce what the (critical) Bill is now, but we will raise a very important issue in the second part (of the Union Budget Minister Session),” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said. File | Photo Credit: ANI
Sources said the government has reached out to several Opposition leaders and sought their views on bringing an amendment to advance the timeline for implementation of the Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act or Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, which aims to allocate 33% of seats to directly elected legislatures for women, including the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies.
More commonly known as the Women’s Reservation Act, 2023, the law was passed by Parliament in a special session; The first was held on 21 September 2023 in the new Parliament building. The Lok Sabha passed the Bill with 454 votes in favor and two against. Rajya Sabha passed the bill unanimously; 214 votes in favour, none against.
Article 5 of the Act states that the reservation for women is “after obtaining the relevant figures for the first Census taken after the enactment of the Act and after a delimitation exercise has been carried out for this purpose…” The Union Cabinet cleared the decks on December 12, 2025 for the Census, which will be carried out in two phases – “house list and housing census” between April and September 2026 and population census in February 2027. The cap, which is expected to increase the number of Lok Sabha seats, remains unclear.
Sources in the government confirmed Hindu“Informal notices” were sent to several Opposition leaders to seek their views on introducing changes to the Act, eliminating the need to wait for the Census to be completed, which would help initiate the delimitation exercise.
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A senior source from the government said, “We have sent unofficial messages on this issue, nothing official has been shared by us, not even a suggestion. If there is an official move on this issue, it will be shared.” The source did not make a statement about the fate of the limitation application or whether there were any thoughts about the implementation of the Law before the implementation.
Speaking to reporters in Tawang on February 15, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, Arunachal Pradesh, had stated that the second part of the Budget Session, which begins on Monday, March 9, 2026, will be “interesting” as many “important” legislations and a “critical” bill will be presented in Parliament for discussion and passage. Mr. Rijiju had said, “We will bring some important bills, including a critical bill. We will not announce what the bill is now, but we will bring up a very important issue in the second part. We will pass all these bills.”
The main reason for the Opposition’s criticism during the discussion of the law in the Parliament was the uncertainty in the implementation schedule of the law. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, who is also the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, had said during the debate that there was no need to “link women’s reservation with Census and delimitation”. By introducing these two conditions, the government believes that the bill is only a “jumla”.
15% of the total members in the 17th Lok Sabha are women, while in State Assemblies women constitute an average of 9% of the total members.
It was published – 09 March 2026 22:28 IST
