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Explainer: Women’s quota bill fails to pass India's Lok Sabha, what’s next?
Opposition parties are against linking women’s reservation to delimitation and Census. Delimitation redraws boundaries of constituencies to ensure each seat represents an equal number of people
- PUBLISHED: Sun 19 Apr 2026, 4:11 PM
The 131st Amendment to the Indian Constitution, aimed at implementing one-third women’s reservation in Lok Sabha, India's Lower House, failed to get approval on Friday, April 17.
It fell short of the two-third majority of 352, out of the total 528 members present in the lower house. A uniform 50 percent increase in seats, under the new law, would maintain the proportion for all states and union territories. The current 543 parliamentary seats, would increase to 815 seats after increasing the upper limit on seats from 550 to 850.
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During voting, only 298 MPs voted in favour of it and 230 against the bill.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was critical of the opposition’s stance. “I know that 100 per cent of women in this country were backing the move,” he said, adding: “I seek forgiveness from all women of the country. I want to assure them that we will remove every obstacle in the way. We are resolute on this, and our intentions are also immovable.”
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Modi slammed the opposition, describing many of them as dynastic. “They apprehend that our mothers and sisters who are in their thousands in panchayats and local bodies would take their share of power, edging them and their families out,” he said.
Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, however, said the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam is not a women’s reservation bill and it has nothing to do with the empowerment of women.
Shashi Tharoor, Congress lawmaker from Kerala, admitted there was “near unanimous political consensus in favour of women’s reservation.” However, he noted that while Modi claimed the government has brought ‘nari shakti’ (women’s empowerment), as a gift of justice, “he has wrapped it in barbed wire tethering the implementation of women's reservation to the expansion of parliament to numbers from 2011 census and an exercise of delimitation.”
What's next?
Following the defeat of the Constitution Amendment Bill, the government decided not to proceed with the two linked bills. While this will delay the implementation of boosting women’s reservation, the government will have to consider whether it can proceed with just one bill, without including delimitation.
Khaleej Times takes a look at the evolution and emergence of elections of women in India – and the setbacks faced of this landmark legislation, which has once again failed to get parliamentary approval:
How have women fared in the lower house of Indian Parliament over the decades?
In the first Lok Sabha (1951-52), there were just 24 women MPs in a house of 489 (4.91 per cent). It went up to 6.28 per cent in 1962, then dipped to 5.58 per cent in 1967, and plunged to 3.51 per cent in 1977. It shot up over the next two elections to 5.29 per cent (1980) and 7.95 per cent (1984). In the 1990s, women accounted for 7.3 per cent lawmakers in parliament (1991), 7.37 per cent (1996), 7.92 per cent (1998) and 9.02 per cent (1999). There were 45 women MPs (8.29 per cent) in 2004, 59 (10.87 per cent) in 2009 and 66 (12.15 per cent) in 2014. The numbers went up to 78 in 2019, but fell to 74 in 2024.
What has been the share of women in India’s overall population?
According to World Bank, women’s share in India’s population was 48.4 per cent (1960 to 1974), rose to 48.5 per cent in 2011, but fell to 48.3 till 2018; since then, it has gone up to 48.4 per cent. By 2036, the country’s population is expected to rise to 1.522 billion, with women accounting for 48.8 per cent.
The sex ratio is projected to increase from 943 (number of females per 1,000 males) in 2011 to 952 by 2036, reflecting a positive trend in gender equality. The sex ratio was the highest in Kerala (with women numbering 1,084 as against 1,000 males), and lowest in Daman & Diu (618).
What is the percentage of women in national legislatures around the world?
An Inter-Parliamentary Union study found Sweden and Norway having the highest share of women in national legislatures (at 46 per cent); others with relatively high numbers included South Africa (45 per cent), France (38 per cent), Germany and the UK (35 per cent), and the US (29 per cent). In Bangladesh it was 21 per cent, and in Japan it was at a mere 10 per cent. India too had just 15 per cent women in national legislatures.
How have women’s MP contestants’ success rate fared as against those of men in India?
There has been a dramatic fall in the success rate for female contestants in parliamentary elections in India, according to a study by Factly Media and Research. It has plunged from 49 per cent (success rate for female contestants) in 1957 to 20 per cent in 1980, and dropping further to seven per cent in 1996, before rising to 10 per cent in 2014.
But the number of women contestants in various Lok Sabha elections have been growing: from just 45 in 1957 to 83 in 1971, 330 in 1991, 599 in 1996 and 668 in 2014.
When was the first women’s reservation bill introduced in the Indian Parliament?
When H.D. Deve Gowda was the Prime Minister, the first bill was introduced in parliament. It, however, failed to get through despite several attempts. In 2010, when Manmohan Singh was the premier, it even got through the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament, but was not approved in the lower house.
Why is there stiff opposition to women’s reservation to delimitation?
Most of the Indian opposition parties are against the linking of women’s reservation to delimitation and Census. Delimitation redraws boundaries of constituencies to ensure each seat represents an equal number of people. The last such exercise was carried out in 2002, based on the 2001 census.
The 106th Constitutional Amendment in 2023 introduced reservation of one-third of seats for women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies, based on the first census after the commencement of the Act. Most of the parties in the south fear that population-based redistribution of seats would benefit the northern states, which have higher population growth, in comparison to the southern ones with lower rates. Leaders from Tamil Nadu and Telangana claim that the move would ‘penalise’ them for better governance. But the BJP claims that the ‘pro rata’ approach protects the southern states as there is proportionate increase.
