Congress president and Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge said on Wednesday that the Centre did not have to wait for delimitation to roll out women's reservation, and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of misleading the public on the issue.
Arguing that the one-third quota could be put in place immediately, Kharge said, “You could implement the one-third reservation for women right now. Given the existing strength of the House or the current delimitation, you could simply allocate one-third of those seats. What is stopping you?”
The Congress chief alleged that the government was using the women's quota as a stick to beat the opposition, even though his party had backed the legislation earlier. “This is purely a ploy to defame others, to malign the opposition. If we were to oppose it, why would we try to pass the law earlier? This is just another one of PM Modi’s tactics; he wants to push this agenda forward while deceiving the public with lies,” he said.
The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, cleared by Parliament in a special session in September 2023, amended the Constitution to set aside 33 per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha, State Legislative Assemblies and the Delhi Assembly for women.
Kharge's remarks followed his fourth letter to the Prime Minister, written on October 16, in which he pressed for an immediate all-party meeting to discuss the delimitation proposals before they were finalised and brought before Parliament. He recalled that the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, on delimitation was brought in at short notice in April without building consensus, and was defeated in the Lok Sabha on April 17 after failing to secure the required two-thirds majority.
Tracing the sequence of events, Kharge wrote, “You may kindly recall that I had first written to you on April 11, 2026, to convene an All-Party meeting before bringing any Constitutional Amendment Bill on Delimitation. You did not do so. Thereafter, you made the Bills public on the late evening of April 14, 2026, and convened a special session on April 16, 2026. The Constitutional Amendment Bill on Delimitation failed to muster the necessary two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha on April 17, 2026, by a decisive margin.”
He said the Congress leadership had repeatedly sought consultation across party lines, and that his latest letter was the fourth formal attempt to nudge the government towards a structured process before any fresh legislation. “Thereafter, on July 16, 2026 and August 27, 2026, I wrote to you again, repeating our request for an All-Party meeting. I am now doing so for a fourth time,” he said.