Special session of Parliament starts from today, PM Modi said that the country is fully ready to take historic steps towards women empowerment.

New Delhi, 16 April. As the special session of Parliament to amend the Nari Shakti Vandam Act is scheduled to begin from Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has described it as a “historic step” towards women empowerment. A three-day special session of the extended budget session of Parliament is scheduled to begin later today, in which the discussion will focus on the proposed constitutional amendments related to the implementation of the Nari Shakti Vandan Act. PM Modi said on social media platform

The government is expected to introduce three amendment bills aimed at implementing the law, which was passed to provide 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, in 2023. Earlier this week, the central government shared with MPs the text of the proposed Amendment to the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 or the Women’s Reservation Bill, which aims to increase the Lok Sabha seats to 850, including members from states and union territories.

This bill proposes to limit the number of members to be elected by direct elections from constituencies in the states to 815. For Union Territories the Bill states. There shall be not more than 35 members to represent the Union Territories, duly elected by the Parliament. At present, the Lok Sabha has 530 members from states and 20 members from Union Territories. However, the Delimitation Commission had fixed this number at 543. Another important amendment proposed in the Bill relates to the definition of population, which gives Parliament the power to decide what data is to be used as the basis for expanding the number of seats.

The Bill to amend clause (3) of article 81 of the Constitution proposes, “(3) In this article, the expression ‘population’ means the population determined at such census, as Parliament may by law determine, the relevant statistics of which have been published.” The Union Cabinet had recently approved a bill to amend the Constitution to quickly implement 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and Assemblies, as well as to increase the number of seats in the lower house of Parliament.

The amendment bill also proposes changes to Article 82, whereby on the completion of each census, the words “allocation of seats” shall be substituted for “allocation of seats”. The purpose of the proposed amendment is to delink the implementation of the quota from the 2027 census and instead base it on the 2011 census, thereby allowing it to be implemented before the 2029 general elections.