NEW DELHI: A united opposition on Friday spurned PM Narendra Modi’s last-minute appeal for a “conscience vote” and home minister Amit Shah‘s offer to write into the women’s reservation bill that Lok Sabha seats in all states will go up by 50% to inflict on govt its first legislative defeat in 12 years, with the proposed law failing to get the required two-thirds vote in the House. Opposition parties – which had alleged that the bill promising women’s quota from 2029 was a ploy to cut the south’s representation in LS, redraw the political map to BJP’s advantage and delay caste enumeration – remained unpersuaded by Shah’s assertions that the weight of southern states in LS will marginally go up under the proposed formula and that govt was committed to conduct caste count. The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill received 298 votes in support and 230 against. It needed at least 352 votes in favour from the members present in the House for passage. With the centrepiece bill falling through, parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju said two other bills “intrinsically” linked to the main proposal, including one on delimitation, would be withdrawn.
You will have no place to hide in elections, Shah tells oppnReplying to the debate on the constitutional amendment bills for women’s reservation and delimitation, Union home minister Amit Shah said two primary reasons behind the bills were to ensure a time-bound rollout of women’s reservation by 2029 and to implement in true spirit the idea of “one person, one vote, one value”. Shah said the Malkajgiri LS seat in Telangana had more than 39 lakh voters, emphasising that 127 constituencies have more than 20 lakh voters. He rejected the opposition’s charge that delimitation will result in southern states having less weight in LS. On average, an LS seat in the south has far fewer voters than those in the north. On caste quota, Shah said, “BJP govt will go by the collective sense of Parliament. Let there be no doubt.” For BJP, representation and participation of people (in legislatures) of the country is most important, he said, in what marked a rare willingness to engage on the issue. He, however, ruled out quota for Muslims, saying it is violative of the Constitution. “We will not allow anyone to implement this.” Striking a combative note on women’s quota, the home minister, like the PM had on Thursday, warned opposition of a backlash. “If you do not vote in support of the bill, it will fall through, but women of the country are seeing who is the obstacle in their way. You will have no place to hide in elections. Opposition will face the wrath of women, not only in the 2029 LS elections but also at every level, in every election, and at every place.” Later, he took to X to berate the opposition for celebrating the defeat of the bills. The most dramatic moment during his reply came when he accepted the demand of Congress MP K C Venugopal to write into the bill that seats in every state will go up by 50%. However, he was quick to reject Venugopal’s other demand that the women’s reservation bill be delinked from delimitation, saying it is an “enticing trap” to deny quota to women in 2029. He took head-on Rahul Gandhi’s claim about Congress being a supporter of OBC cause. “Congress is the most anti-OBC party,” Shah said listing decisions like non-implementation of the recommendations of the Kalelkar Commission for OBC reservation under Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi not acting on the Mandal Commission’s recommendations, and Rajiv Gandhi opposing the same. Congress never made an OBC community member the Prime Minister while BJP, in Modi, has given the country a PM from extremely backward caste, he said. Congress and its allies in the INDIA bloc have a history of scuttling legislative proposal for the reservation five times since the idea was first mooted during the P V Narasimha Rao govt, and it at times leant on its allies to sink the proposal, he said while also recalling the opposition party’s stand over the Shah Bano verdict and triple talaq. He said Congress has reflexively opposed all signature initiatives of Modi govt – from scrapping of special status for J&K to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
