India: Government Reintroduces Women's Quota Law and Delimitation Bills Amid Opposition

A day after the Centre signalled its intention to reintroduce the legislative package on operationalising women’s quota law and carrying out delimitation , and urged the Congress to reconsider its position, the Opposition party on Thursday asked the government to convene an all-party meeting on the matter. In a phone call, Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi asked Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju to take all parties into confidence on the key points of the proposed legislation. The government, however, rejected the demand, with sources saying Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Rijiju had discussed the matter with leaders of almost all the parties, including the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the DMK. “There were no objections to the Bill. They just wanted security for their respective states and their interests to be protected,” said a government functionary. The SP denied it was planning to support the Delimitation Bill . “We defeated it three months ago. And now too we are against this design of the government to redraw the boundaries of constituencies. The government should first tell us what has changed in the Bill which was defeated by the united Opposition. If nothing has changed, then how can we change our stand?” said a senior SP MP. Some BJP leaders, including a few ministers, claimed the government had already mustered the numbers required to get the Constitutional amendment Bill passed, but wants to follow the formalities. “There is no deadlock, because we have the numbers. We just do not want to bulldoze the Bill through the House. We were meeting the Congress leaders for formalities,” said a minister. However, other leaders of the ruling party said the party needs to be sure it has the numbers locked down. “We need to be sure that we have numbers which are more than two-thirds majority to bring the Bills to Parliament again. We cannot afford to make another gamble here. We do not want a repetition of what happened in April,” said a source. In April, the Opposition defeated the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, to fast-track the implementation of 33% women’s reservation. It proposed lifting the freeze on expanding the number of Lok Sabha seats and linked reservation directly to a new delimitation exercise. Sources said Gandhi discussed the government’s overture with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge before speaking to Rijiju. Kharge and senior Congress leaders K C Venugopal and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were present during the telephone conversation. Sources said Gandhi made it clear that the government should convene the all-party meeting first and explain to the political parties its “intention” and whether it was amenable to making any changes in the Constitution amendment Bill on operationalising the women’s reservation law, which was defeated on the floor of the House in April. “Kharge ji kept saying there should be an all-party meeting to discuss delimitation. We asked him, ‘Why do you want to call a meeting in which you are going to say that the Congress does not support the Bill?,’” said a government functionary. “We want to know what the government’s intention is. We want to know whether the government is making any changes in the Bill. Our position is still the same. We are opposed to the Delimitation Bill as it stands today,” Venugopal told The Indian Express. The Congress leadership had conveyed to Rijiju its stand on Wednesday, but the minister urged the party to reconsider its position. Sources said Gandhi and other Congress leaders briefed other Opposition leaders about the government’s overture at a meeting of Opposition floor leaders on Thursday morning. The Opposition remains united on the demand for an all-party meeting before the government makes any move to reintroduce the Constitution amendment Bill, sources added. Gandhi is also learnt to have told Rijiju that the Opposition won’t back down on the demand for Union Home Minister Amit Shah to explain to Parliament the reasons for the police crackdown on agitating students and youth. Any Bill can be discussed after Shah addresses Parliament on the matter, sources said. Another key sticking point between the government and the Congress is over the proposed Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 . The government has indicated it is willing to drop the controversial retrospective provision in the Bill, but the Congress remains unconvinced. The draft FCRA bill proposes the introduction of a new chapter that deals with the concept of “cessation” of an FCRA certificate. An organisation may cease to have an FCRA certificate if the government cancels it, the organisation surrenders it, or a renewal application has not been filed or is denied. The Bill creates a Designated Authority for the vesting, supervision, management and disposal of foreign contribution and assets in such cases. In case of assets that are a place of worship, the Authority must ensure that its religious character is maintained. If an organisation subsequently secures a fresh or renewed registration, the assets may be returned. Otherwise, they would permanently vest with the Authority, which could transfer them to government departments or agencies or dispose of them in accordance with the law. “Even if the government drops the retrospective clause, the Bill still gives the government power to take over assets of an organisation. If its licence is cancelled. This is overreach. We are opposed to such provisions,” a Congress leader said. The retrospective provision is mentioned in Section 16 B, which makes the new framework applicable to assets that had already vested under the earlier law before the amendment came into force.