New Delhi, April 17: On Friday, after the failure to pass the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill in the Lok Sabha, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju launched a sharp critique against the opposition, stating they have “missed a historic moment.”
Rijiju’s comments came after the bill received 298 votes in favor and 230 against, falling short of the two-thirds majority required for constitutional amendments.
He remarked, “These results pertain to a significant and historic bill aimed at granting respect and rights to women in our country. The opposition did not support it, which is very unfortunate. This historic moment was an opportunity that you (the opposition) squandered.”
Rijiju addressed the house following a lengthy debate on three contentious bills, including the delimitation bill and an amendment to increase women’s reservation in Union Territories.
He added, “In addition to the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, we have two more bills, namely the Union Territory Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, and the Delimitation Bill, 2026; these bills are deeply interconnected with the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill and cannot be viewed in isolation. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we will continue our campaign to secure rights for women.”
However, the central minister confirmed that the government would not proceed with the remaining two bills.
Notably, this bill proposed increasing the number of Lok Sabha seats from 543 to 850, a move linked to the long-delayed delimitation exercise, which aimed to redraw electoral boundaries based on population changes.
Additionally, it sought to implement a 33 percent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, a reform that had been promised but postponed until after the next delimitation.
The government’s argument was that expanding and redistributing seats was essential to rectify the imbalance between voters and representatives, a gap that has widened since the boundaries were fixed based on the 1971 census during the last delimitation.
However, opposition parties countered that the government was using the promise of women’s empowerment as a political maneuver that would benefit the more populous northern states while disadvantaging southern states, which have successfully stabilized their populations.
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