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4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Mar 10, 2026 10:48 AM IST
File photo of women celebrating the passage of the women's reservation law in a special session in September 2023, months before the Lok Sabha elections. (PTI file photo)
The Union government is exploring the possibility of delinking the Women’s Reservation Act from the delimitation and Census exercises and implementing it before the 2027 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, it is learnt. One option that the government was seriously considering is introducing a lottery system to decide the one third of the constituencies that should be reserved for women, sources said.
Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju has already spoken to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge twice, seeking the main Opposition party’s opinion on amending the Women’s Reservation Act, 2023, also known as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam or the Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, to reserve 33% of the seats for women in the Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies.
It is learnt that Rijiju, in his conversations, mentioned that the government wants to bring in an amendment to the Bill in the ongoing Budget session that is scheduled to conclude on April 2. The government would reach out to other Opposition parties to evolve a consensus on the move, sources said.
“The Congress and a few other parties have already demanded to fast-track the Women’s Reservation Act without waiting for the delimitation and Census exercises to be over. Kharge ji has said it in the House, the DMK and the TMC also made such demands. Linking it with delimitation was the government’s idea,” said a Congress leader familiar with the developments.
Rijiju recently said the session could witness Parliament taking up a “critical” Bill along with several other important pieces of legislation, including the Finance Bill. “The government can take a decision only after the opposition parties come up with their opinions on this. A final call will be taken only after clarity on it,” said a government source.
What Opposition said earlier
The women’s reservation law was passed in a special session in September 2023, months before the Lok Sabha elections. It has a clause that stipulates that reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies will come into effect only after the first Census conducted after the Act’s commencement is completed, followed by a delimitation exercise. The Census, initially scheduled to be held in 2021 as per the schedule, got delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The process, however, has started and is expected to be completed by 2026.
When the Women’s Reservation Bill was taken up in Parliament, Opposition leaders, including Kharge, had criticised the decision to link it with the delimitation exercise. In the Lok Sabha, the DMK’s M Kanimozhi pointed out that when the UPA government introduced the Bill, no conditions were imposed. Terming the passage of the long-pending Bill in the special session “a strange drama staged by the BJP, keeping in mind the 2024 elections”, Kanimozhi said, “If you do not remove the clause which says after delimitation, then there is no point. We do not know how long this inordinate delay will go on. The Census and the delimitation can happen after 20 or 30 years. The wait can continue.”
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Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien and Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra had demanded that the Bill be implemented immediately for the 2024 elections rather than wait for the future.
Have been in journalism covering national politics for 23 years. Have covered six consecutive Lok Sabha elections and assembly polls in almost all the states. Currently writes on ruling BJP. Always loves to understand what's cooking in the national politics (And ventures into the act only in kitchen at home). ... Read More
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