NEW DELHI: Union Minister Kiren Rijiju has hit back at Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi for once again backing away from unconditional support to Women’s Reservation Bill and questioning its link to the Delimitation bill. Rijiju in his latest post on X gave strong reasons for why the two bills have been linked by the Union Government.
Rahul Ji, you know it very well that:
- The reservation of seats for women in the House of the People and Legislative Assembly of the State is provided in the Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, 2023 (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam).
- It shall come into effect:—
(a) After an exercise of delimitation is undertaken,
(b) Based on the census figures published after the year 2023, which means the census figures published after the year 2026.
- The exercise for publishing the census figures after the year 2026 is currently underway; however, this may take substantial time (due to caste based census) to be finally published. In view of this, it may result in considerable delay in the implementation of women reservation, at least not before 2034 General Elections.
- Therefore, to implement the women reservation at the next general elections in 2029, the delimitation exercise needs to be undertaken at the earliest, based on the latest available Census figures, as published.
- The implementation methodology has been proposed under the Delimitation Bill 2026, introduced in the Lok Sabha along with the amendments to the Constitution.
- However, the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 which was introduced for this purpose has been defeated.
