The Narendra Modi government on Tuesday created a talking point for itself for the Lok Sabha elections by introducing the Women’s Reservation Bill, but delayed its actual implementation till much after 2024 — essentially kicking the can down the road indefinitely.
The Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill, which proposes to reserve one-third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies for women, has linked the implementation of the reservation to the already delayed Census and to delimitation, which has been frozen by law till 2026.
This prompted the Opposition to describe the bill as an “election jumla” and an attempt to “fool women”.
Clause 334(a) of the bill states that the women’s quota “shall come into effect after an exercise of delimitation is undertaken for this purpose, after the relevant figures for the first census taken after commencement” of the women’s reservation law have been published.
The decadal census — which was to have been conducted in 2021 but was delayed purportedly because of Covid — has not been undertaken yet. No reason has been cited for this inordinate delay.
A freeze till 2026 was put on delimitation by the Vajpayee government.
Since the bill links reservation to the census and delimitation, it could take a few years to implement, so women will not have access to the quota in the 2024 general election.
The reservation will be valid for 15 years, with a provision for Parliament to extend it.
First, the date of the commencement of the law will be fixed by the government, then the census undertaken, on the basis of which delimitation will be carried out. This process will eat into the 15 years that the quota will be valid for, prompting critics of the government to label it a “post-dated cheque with an expiry date”.
Seats to be reserved for women will be determined by rotation. There is a provision that ensures quota within quota by mandating that “as nearly as one-third” of the seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will be set aside for women. In the Delhi Assembly, where there are no ST seats, it will apply only to the SC seats.
