Women’s Reservation: Women’s reservation put on hold due to non-passing of Constitution Amendment Bill, seats in southern and eastern states also likely to decrease due to new delimitation.

New Delhi. The Constitution Amendment Bill could not be passed in the Lok Sabha. Modi government needed two-thirds majority to pass the bill, but the opposition did not support. Due to non-passage of the Constitution Amendment Bill, it may not be possible for women to get 33 percent reservation in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. Delimitation takes time. As a result, it will be possible for women to get reservation only from the 2034 Lok Sabha elections. Apart from this, now based on the census data of 2011 or 2026, 33 percent reservation will have to be made for women in the existing 543 seats of Lok Sabha.

If 33 percent reservation is given to women in the existing seats of Lok Sabha, 180 seats will be reserved for them. Many of these seats will be those which currently have male MPs. The big question is whether male MPs will accept their seats being reserved for women? Also, if the Constitution Amendment Bill is not passed, there is a strong possibility that the current number of Lok Sabha seats in South and East India will be reduced due to the delimitation of Lok Sabha seats on the basis of census data. The reason for this is that the population in the states of South and Eastern India is less as compared to North India.

If the delimitation of Lok Sabha seats is done on the basis of 2011 census data, the number of Lok Sabha seats from Tamil Nadu will increase to 32. There are currently 39 seats here. At the same time, Karnataka’s Lok Sabha seats will decrease from 28 to 27, Andhra Pradesh’s Lok Sabha seats will decrease from 25 to 22, Telangana’s seats will decrease from 17 to 15, Kerala’s seats will decrease from 20 to 15, Odisha’s seats will decrease from 21 to 18 and West Bengal’s Lok Sabha seats will decrease from 42 to 40. At the same time, there will be an increase in the Lok Sabha seats of the states of North, West and Central India. Whereas, the Modi government had offered to the opposition that if they pass the Constitution Amendment Bill, then proportionately the number of seats in the states ruled by them will increase by 50 percent.