The exchange began after Rijiju responded to a video posted by Gandhi on women’s freedom, participation and political representation. Rijiju described the message as a positive shift and said he hoped the Congress would now support the women’s reservation proposal “unconditionally”.
Gandhi countered that Parliament had already passed legislation providing reservation for women in 2023 with Congress support. He questioned why the government had not implemented it and accused the Centre of unnecessarily linking the quota to delimitation.
“Implement the 2023 law. Without any conditions,” Gandhi said, sharpening a dispute that has moved back to the centre of parliamentary politics.
The argument came two days after Rijiju met Gandhi for about 50 minutes in an effort to narrow differences over the government’s delimitation and women’s reservation proposals. Congress maintained its opposition to expanding the Lok Sabha as part of the mechanism for introducing the quota, while supporting reservation for women within the existing parliamentary strength.
Gandhi’s video, posted on Friday, argued that the potential of women was being constrained by social and institutional barriers. He said the country could not realise its full potential unless women were free to express themselves at home, in public spaces, business and politics.
Rijiju seized on those remarks to challenge Congress over its resistance to the government’s legislative route. He said Gandhi appeared to have undergone a “change of heart” on women and called for unconditional backing for the reservation plan.
The political disagreement is less about the principle of reserving seats for women than about how and when the measure should be implemented.
Parliament approved the Constitution’s 106th Amendment in September 2023, providing for one-third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha, state legislative assemblies and the Delhi Assembly. The quota also applies within seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
Congress voted for the measure while criticising the absence of a separate quota for women from Other Backward Classes and questioning provisions that postponed implementation until after a future census and delimitation exercise.
The constitutional amendment received presidential assent on September 28, 2023. Its operative provisions were formally brought into force on April 16 this year, but the reservation itself cannot take effect under the existing framework until delimitation is carried out on the basis of the first census conducted after the law came into operation.
That condition has become the core of the confrontation.
The government attempted in April to accelerate women’s reservation through a new constitutional amendment linked to a broader delimitation exercise. The proposal would have expanded the maximum strength of the Lok Sabha substantially while creating a pathway for the 33 per cent quota to operate by the 2029 general election.
The Constitution Bill failed in the Lok Sabha on April 17 after securing 298 votes in favour and 230 against. Although it obtained a numerical majority, it fell short of the constitutionally required two-thirds majority of members present and voting. Associated delimitation legislation was subsequently withdrawn.
Opposition parties argued that women’s reservation should be implemented without tying it to an expansion and redistribution of parliamentary seats. They have also raised concerns that population-based delimitation could alter the relative political weight of states that achieved lower population growth over previous decades.
The government has argued that delimitation is constitutionally required and that expanding representation can provide the space necessary to introduce women’s reservation without sharply reducing opportunities for existing constituencies and political groups.
Those competing positions remain unresolved. The Centre has continued efforts to build political support for another legislative attempt before the 2029 election, making Congress backing important because a constitutional amendment requires a special majority.
Saturday’s exchanges also exposed the political contest over ownership of the women’s representation agenda. The government portrays the quota legislation as a landmark empowerment measure and has accused the opposition of blocking its implementation by resisting the delimitation framework.
Congress says its voting record establishes its support for women’s reservation and argues that the government created the delay by inserting census and delimitation conditions into the 2023 amendment.
The 2023 legislation was passed overwhelmingly rather than unanimously in both Houses. The Lok Sabha approved it by 454 votes to two, while the Rajya Sabha passed it without a dissenting vote among members voting.
With the delimitation dispute still unresolved, the latest confrontation between Gandhi and Rijiju has shifted attention from whether Parliament supports greater representation for women to the politically harder question of which constituencies will be reserved, how parliamentary boundaries will be redrawn and whether the quota can be put into operation before voters choose the next Lok Sabha.
(IPA Service)
