The demonstrators raised slogans against the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and criticised the Congress position on legislation intended to operationalise the 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies. Their protest reflected a broader campaign by political opponents seeking to portray Gandhi’s resistance to the government’s legislative approach as opposition to women’s reservation itself.
Gandhi, however, has repeatedly said that Congress supports the reservation of one-third of legislative seats for women. His objection has centred on the government’s attempt to connect implementation with delimitation and the use of population data that Congress says could alter parliamentary representation without adequate safeguards.
The distinction has become central to the dispute. Parliament passed the Constitution Act in September 2023, providing for reservation of about 33 per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha, state legislative assemblies and the Delhi Assembly. The reservation was tied to a delimitation exercise following a census conducted after the amendment took effect.
A fresh attempt this year to put the quota into operation became entangled with proposed changes governing delimitation. The government argued that the measures were necessary to implement women’s representation within a revised electoral framework. Congress and several opposition parties objected to linking the two processes, warning that delimitation could significantly redistribute parliamentary seats between states.
The dispute intensified after proposed legislation connected with women’s reservation and delimitation failed to secure the required parliamentary support in April. BJP leaders subsequently organised demonstrations targeting Gandhi and Congress, accusing the opposition of denying women political representation.
Gandhi countered that the opposition had defeated what he described as an attempt to alter the country’s electoral structure rather than a straightforward measure granting women their quota. He said the government could implement the 2023 women’s reservation provisions independently and would receive Congress support.
The position has nevertheless provided the BJP with an opening to challenge Gandhi’s record on women’s empowerment. The issue gained further prominence after his interaction with female students in Pune on August 22, where he urged women to challenge patriarchal restrictions and argued that social structures continued to limit their independence.
His comments prompted senior BJP figures to question whether his advocacy of women’s rights was consistent with Congress’s parliamentary stance. Smriti Irani challenged Gandhi to support immediate implementation of the 33 per cent quota, while Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju accused him of adopting contradictory positions.
The argument has also acquired a minority dimension. Muslim women have historically been under-represented in legislatures, and demands for a separate provision for Muslim and Other Backward Classes women surfaced again during parliamentary debate this year.
Samajwadi Party leaders sought specific representation for OBC and Muslim women, while the government maintained that reservation based explicitly on religion would face constitutional barriers. Congress has separately argued for an OBC sub-quota within women’s reservation and has acknowledged that failure to provide such representation in earlier proposals was a mistake.
Gandhi has said Congress unequivocally backs women’s reservation but opposes implementing it through arrangements based on the 2011 census. He has argued that updated population and caste data are necessary before changes affecting representation are undertaken.
That position complicates claims that Gandhi opposes women’s reservation as a principle. His disagreement is primarily over the mechanism, timing and relationship between the quota and delimitation. The women protesting in Delhi, however, presented the issue in more direct political terms, arguing that opposition votes had prevented women from securing representation that had been promised for decades.
Women’s reservation has travelled a long legislative path. Multiple attempts beginning in the 1990s failed before Parliament approved the constitutional amendment in 2023. The Lok Sabha passed that measure by 454 votes to two, while the Rajya Sabha approved it unanimously among members voting.
