‘Hold Parliament on Monday, bring old bill, let's see who is anti-women’: Priyanka leads Oppn charge as govt move fails

ADaylight after the Narendra Modi government's makeup (131st Amendment) government note drop in the Lok Sabha — the number one defeat of a government bill in 12 years — the opposition tried on Saturday to wrest control of the narrative, with Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra issuing a pointed public challenge to the government."They should bring the old women's bill — the one which was passed by all parties in 2023 — immediately on Monday. Hold Parliament on Monday, bring the bill and let's see who is anti-woman. We will all vote and support you," she told news agency ANI.She accused the BJP-led NDA of trying to mislead the voters of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, states that vote later this month, by terming the Opposition parties “anti-women”. Tamil Nadu's ruling DMK even moved a bill to give the quota within the current Lok Sabha strength of 543. Bengal's ruling Trnamool Congress said it supports even a 50% quota if it's not linked to a 2011 census-based delimitation. The "old bill" that Priyanka Gandhi was referring to, is the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam or the Constitution (106th Amendment) Act of 2023, which already provides for 33% reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. It was in fact notified this week. The reason it cannot be implemented is that the BJP-led government inserted a condition requiring a fresh census and delimitation before it comes into force — a condition the Opposition says it did not want even then.Letter to PM ModiOn Saturday, Congress-led INDIA bloc of non-NDA parties announced they would write formally to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding the implementation of the original 2023 law, without the delimitation package that brought down the bills this week. Tamil Nadu's ruling party DMK even sought to introduce a fresh bill to this effect, calling for immediate quota within the current Lok Sabha strength of 543, for instance. But Parliament was adjourned indefinitely on what was the third day of the special session called specifically on the women's quota issue. Party leaders from across the alliance held a meeting at which Sonia Gandhi, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson, expressed gratitude to all allies for holding together.Many INDIA bloc parties held simultaneous press conferences to state, for the record, that they support women's reservation, but not under cover of a delimitation exercise they believe was designed to redraw India's electoral map in the BJP's favour.DMK's big move in ParliamentThe challenge was also made in legislative form by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) as a party MP from Tamil Nadu presented a private member's constitution amendment bill in the Rajya Sabha, proposing 33% women's reservation from the next election on the existing 543-seat Lok Sabha — without any census, without any delimitation or expansion of the House. Unlike the government's 2023 law, the DMK bill even called for the reservation to be permanent rather than limited to 15 years.Government's positionThe BJP's messaging after not getting a two-third majority nod in Parliament has been well-coordinated. Home minister Amit Shah accused the Congress, TMC, DMK and Samajwadi Party of blocking a historic reform. "The Opposition will have to face the wrath of women not only in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, but at every level, in every election… This insult to Nari Shakti will not stop here; it will travel far and wide, he said.So far, the government has not explained why the 2023 law cannot simply be amended to remove the census-delimitation condition, and instead be made operative on existing seats. Amit Shah argued in Parliament that expanding seats by a flat 50% will mean no states lose their proportinate share. That was one of the chief concerns of southern states where population-control measures have been implemented better than in North India where BJP has its main base.Shah said the expansion would give Tamil Nadu 59 seats with 20 reserved for women, instead of 13 reserved out of the current 39. This would safeguard current leaders' positions, while giving more space to women, the BJP has essentially argued.Congress's KC Venugopal flagged a contradiction explicitly in the Lok Sabha. "You only made the provision that there shall be a census, followed by a delimitation, then the reservation will happen. We never said that. We told, at that point of time only, that we need women's reservation by 2024 elections," he said.Sonia Gandhi made the same point in a newspaper article on April 13, three days before the special session began: "Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, had forcefully demanded that the reservation provision be implemented from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections itself. For reasons best known to itself, the government did not agree. Why did it take the Prime Minister 30 months to make his U-turn?"Question that does not go awayBut one issue remains conspicuous — and the 2023 bill's passage did not resolve it either. The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam provides for reservation within the existing SC and ST quota: one-third of seats already reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will go to women from those communities. What it does not provide, is any equivalent for women from Other Backward Classes. OBCs have no political reservation in Parliament or state assemblies. The Constitution reserves SC and ST seats under Articles 330 and 332. No equivalent provision exists for OBCs. An OBC sub-quota within women's reservation is constitutionally impossible without first creating OBC political reservation — which itself requires a separate constitutional amendment.This is why parties like the Samajwadi Party and RJD voted for the 2023 bill, while simultaneously objecting to it. Akhilesh Yadav put the demand in Parliament this week too, "What if they don't count OBCs and Muslims in half the population which is women? We want Muslim and OBC women to get reservation — this is our demand."The 2026 caste census — the first nationwide caste count since 1931 — is supposed to generate the data needed to make this demand actionable. State surveys in Bihar and Telangana have already shown backward classes making up around 60% of the population. A national figure in that range would create a virtually irresistible political pressure for OBC political reservation.The government was allegedly trying to bypass that question by seeking delimitation based on the 2011 census before that caste data is even available. RJD's Rajya Sabha member Manoj Kumar Jha explained earlier this week, “Proceeding with delimitation first can be seen as a way to lock in structural advantages before new data reshapes expectations, alliances, and claims to political power across states and social groups.”The delimitation question itself has remained unresolved for 50 years. It was last done in the 1970s, and then pushed for 25 years, twice. Now it's anyhow due after 2026. Besides the OBC quota demand, there other fundamental questions that remain unresolved. Southern states fear they would lose proportional share in the long term if only population is used as the basis for delimitation. Amit Shah did say that a flat 50% increase won't change state-wise share, and at the last minute he even promised to write it in the law.By that time, it was too late apparently. On delimitation, parties want more discussion. The women's quota can be implemented before that for now, the Congress, TMC and DMK have said.