NEW DELHI – A high‑stakes Indian government bill that sought to expand the Lok Sabha and state assemblies while advancing the timing of a one‑third reservation for women has failed to win enough votes in parliament, dealing a rare setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s legislative agenda.
The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, which would have increased the size of the lower house by about 55% to 850 members by the 2029 general election and similarly enlarged regional assemblies, fell short of the two‑thirds majority required for a constitutional change. In the Lok Sabha vote on Friday, 298 lawmakers backed the measure and 230 opposed it, leaving it well below the threshold needed.
The bill had been framed as a way to operationalise the 2023 Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, which guarantees 33% reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state legislatures, but the government tied it to a nationwide delimitation exercise to redraw constituency boundaries based on the latest population shifts. Opposition parties welcomed the quota for women in principle but argued that linking it to delimitation gave the ruling alliance scope to redraw the electoral map in its favour and weaken southern states.
Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi labelled the move an “unconstitutional trick” in the name of women and said the defeat would protect the Constitution from being manipulated for partisan gain. The government, however, dismissed these claims and insisted it would press on with its campaign to secure greater representation for women in elected bodies. Home Minister Amit Shah told parliament that the country’s women would not “forgive” those seen as blocking the reform.
Under current rules, India’s parliament does not reserve any seats for women; women make up about 14% of Lok Sabha members and 17% of the Upper House, with only around 10% of state‑level legislators being women. The 2023 law had originally pegged the full rollout of the one‑third quota to the next census, which is still underway and would have delayed concrete implementation until after the 2029 polls. With Friday’s vote, that timeline remains unchanged, and the government has indicated it will not proceed for now with the accompanying delimitation and Union‑territory bills.