For nearly three years, a law guaranteeing 33 per cent reservation for women in India’s Parliament and state assemblies sat on the books, unanimously passed, signed by the President, and left unnotified. Then, on the evening of April 16, 2026, the Narendra Modi government quietly notified the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam in the official gazette. The very next morning, it introduced three bills in the Lok Sabha that bundled women’s reservation with a sweeping plan to expand Parliament from 543 to 850 seats and redraw every constituency in the country based on the 2011 Census.
The opposition smelled a trap. By April 17, it had sprung one of its own.
The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, the centrepiece of the three-bill package, failed to secure the two-thirds majority required to pass a constitutional amendment. Of 528 members present and voting, 298 supported the bill and 230 opposed it. The government needed 352 votes and fell short by 54. Union Minister Kiren Rijiju promptly withdrew the two companion bills, the Delimitation Bill, 2026, and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026. It was the first time in twelve years that a constitutional amendment brought by the Modi government had failed on the floor of the Lok Sabha.
Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament: “We clearly said that this was not a women’s bill, but an attempt to change India’s electoral structure which we have stopped.” He challenged Prime Minister Modi to bring the original 2023 law and implement it immediately, pledging that the entire opposition would support it.
The arithmetic of what the bills actually proposed gave the opposition’s argument its sharpest edge. Legislative research body PRS India noted that a delimitation based on the 2011 Census would reduce Tamil Nadu’s Lok Sabha seats from 39 to 32, and Kerala’s from 20 to 15. Southern states that had followed national population stabilisation policies for decades stood to lose political representation as a direct consequence. The DMK’s Kanimozhi told Parliament the bills were “disguised as if they are in support of women’s reservation, but are actually against the Indian federal structure.”
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra put it plainly at a press conference on April 18: “The BJP government linked women’s reservation to delimitation and the old census, in which the OBC category was not included. We can never agree to this.” She called the defeat “a huge victory for the country’s democracy and its integrity.”
Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, also speaking on April 18, alleged the three bills were part of a continuing effort by the BJP to amend the Constitution after its stated target of 400-plus seats in the 2024 general election failed. He called on the Centre to convene all-party consultations before any future delimitation exercise, warning that a pro-rata seat distribution would widen disparities between northern and southern states. “What failed in Parliament was not merely legislation, but the BJP government’s intent,” he said.
Home Minister Amit Shah, replying to the debate before the vote, accused the opposition of opposing women’s reservation itself, warning that India’s women would not forgive the parties that voted against the bill. He did not address the fact that the 2023 law had lain unimplemented under his own government’s watch for nearly three years.
On the evening of April 18, at 8:30 PM, Prime Minister Modi addressed the nation on Doordarshan for 29 minutes, his speech coming less than 24 hours after the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill had fallen in the Lok Sabha. He named the Congress 59 times and accused opposition parties of blocking women’s rightful representation. The CPI(M) and the CPI wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, arguing the broadcast, transmitted over state-funded television while the Model Code of Conduct was in force ahead of assembly elections in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, constituted a misuse of state-funded broadcasters for political ends.
The DMK meanwhile moved a private member’s bill in the Rajya Sabha to operationalise 33 per cent women’s reservation immediately within the existing 543 seats, without delimitation or a new census.
The 2023 Women’s Reservation Act remains law. It also remains, for now, unimplemented.
