Opposition parties on Wednesday made it clear that they would oppose
delimitation while extending support to women’s reservation when the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill is piloted in Parliament on Thursday, setting the stage for a political showdown that would also bring up the debate over caste census.
“We are against the government’s attempt to link it to an unclear census and a future delimitation process. The executive is taking powers that should remain with institutions and Parliament, creating scope to alter delimitation whenever it suits them politically. We have already seen such manipulation and deception in Assam and Jammu and Kashmir. That is why we will continue to fight unitedly on this issue,” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge told reporters after a meeting with Opposition leaders at his residence to strategise for the special session of Parliament beginning on Thursday.
“We support the Women’s Reservation Bill, but the way this government has brought it is politically motivated. We have consistently supported women’s reservation — in 2010 and again in 2023, when the constitutional amendment was passed unanimously. Our demand is simple: implement the amendment instead of using it as a political tool. Secondly, the government is playing tricks on delimitation. All of us in the Opposition are united in this, and unitedly we have decided that we will oppose this bill,” Kharge said.
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi posted on X: “Congress party unequivocally supports women’s reservation. Parliament unanimously passed the bill in 2023, it is already part of our Constitution. What the government is proposing now has nothing to do with women’s reservation. This amendment is an attempted power grab using delimitation and gerrymandering.
“We will not allow ‘Hissa Chori’ from OBC, Dalit and Adivasi communities by ignoring the caste census data. We will also not allow Southern, North Eastern, North Western and smaller states to be treated unfairly.”
The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill to fast-track women’s reservation provides for increasing the number of seats in the Lok Sabha to up to 850, thereby lifting the 50-year-old freeze on the number of seats allocated to every state and Union Territory in the Lower House.
According to the bill, the reallocation of seats to states will be done on the basis of the last published census, which is the population enumeration done in 2011. Along with this bill, the government will also bring the Delimitation Bill to constitute a dedicated commission to evolve a mechanism to carry out delimitation of Parliament and Assembly seats, along with reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women.
“We are in favour of women’s reservation, but against that BJP cunning ploy, which is being carried out under a conspiracy.... This is a massive BJP conspiracy, in which the rights of the backward classes are being looted by rejecting delimitation based on a census,” Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav wrote on X.
