Explained: This article explains the political background, key decisions, and possible outcomes related to Explained : Government may bring twin bills to fast-track women’s reservation and Its Impact and why it matters right now.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah held separate meetings with NDA and non-Congress opposition parties’ floor leaders to arrive at a consensus.
If the consensus is reached, the two bills could be brought as early as this week, the sources said.
P V Midhun Reddy (YSRCP), Dimple Yadav (SP), Supriya Sule (NCP-SP), Manoj Jha (RJD) and Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM) were among the opposition leaders who attended the meet.
Shah is likely to hold consultations with the Congress too in the coming days.
The provision to provide 33% reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies was brought by amending the Constitution, but it will come into effect after the completion of the delimitation exercise.
According to the broad contours available, the number of Lok Sabha seats would be increased from the present 543 to 816, with 273 seats reserved for women. The reservation will also be done in a “vertical basis” with seats allocated for SCs and STs.
A similar exercise will be carried out for state assemblies where seats will be reserved on a pro-rata basis.
While a Constitution amendment bill will tweak the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, commonly known as women’s reservation law, another ordinary bill will amend the Delimitation Act.
Once approved by Parliament, the proposed laws will come into force on March 31, 2029 and will help reserve seats in the next Lok Sabha elections and assembly elections in Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Andhra Pradesh.
The sources also underlined that a delimitation or boundary commission is a “neutral” body mandated to redraw Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies, and its decisions cannot be challenged even in the Supreme Court.
They said a neutral body will instil faith in the delimitation exercise.
The Election Commission is another independent institution, but it cannot be mandated to carry out a pan-India delimitation exercise.
“At best, it can carry out delimitation of one or a few states, as it carried out delimitation in Assam recently,” a government functionary pointed out.
Besides the delimitation exercise, which can decide the constituencies that can be reserved for women, as it does for the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes (by way of population in their cases), another way to decide on constituencies can be by rotation.
In September 2023, President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to the Nari Shakti Vandan Bill.
The law is officially known as the Constitution (106th Amendment) Act.
The sources said the Act, though not yet in force, can still be amended by Parliament through another Constitution amendment bill, if the government wishes so and it gets the required support in the two Houses.
According to its provision, it shall come into force on such date as the Central government may, by notification in the official gazette, appoint.
The Constitution (106th Amendment) Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha with near unanimity and the Rajya Sabha with unanimity.
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When the Bill was passed, the government noted that the next census and the subsequent delimitation exercise would ascertain the particular seats being earmarked for women.
The quota for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies will continue for 15 years, and Parliament can later extend the benefit period.
While there is a quota within quota for SC and ST women, the opposition had demanded that the benefit be also extended to Other Backward Classes (OBCs).