NDA Govt faces first legislative defeat in 12 years as Women Quota Bill fails 2/3 majority test
Bhubaneswar: It is NDA Government’s first legislative defeat in 12 years inside the Parliament, with the proposed the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill-2026 failed to secure the two-thirds majority required for a constitutional amendment in the Lok Sabha.
Though there have been instances in the past when the NDA government has walked back its legislative initiatives such as the farm laws that were repealed in 2021 due to unrelenting protests from a section of farmers, this is the first time when its Bill has been defeated in the Parliament.
A united opposition on Friday rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s last-minute appeal for a ‘conscience vote’. While 298 members voted in its favour and 230 against, the Bill needed 352 votes, two-thirds of the 528 present and voting, to pass. The government subsequently shelved the companion Delimitation Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, saying they could not be viewed in isolation.
Opposition parties – which had alleged that the Bill promising women’s quota from 2029 was a ploy to cut the south’s representation in Lok Sabha, redraw the political map to BJP’s advantage and delay caste enumeration – remained unpersuaded by Home Minister Amit Shah’s assertions that the weight of southern states in Lok Sabha will marginally go up under the proposed formula and that government was committed to conduct caste count.
As the bill failed to pass in LS and two other bills, including one for setting up a delimitation commission, no longer needed, these will not be tabled in Rajya Sabha. The Parliament is likely to adjourn sine die when it meets Saturday, the last day of the extended Budget session.
IN THE HOUSE: POINTS TO PONDER
- Home Minister gave a verbal guarantee that southern States would see their presence in an 816-member Lok Sabha increase in the same proportion as their current share.
- Even he offered to adjourn the House for an hour to redraft the Bill with a 50% uniform increase as an official amendment. The Opposition dismissed this and asked if proportional increase was always the intent, why was it not in the Bill?
- The Bill mandated delimitation on the basis of the latest Census – currently 2011 – which would have reduced the share of southern, eastern, and northeastern States due to their lower population growth relative to the Hindi heartland States.
- Why the haste to push through a controversial constitutional amendment when the 2026-27 Census is still under way? Also, there was no reason to link women’s reservation, on which there is all-party consensus, to delimitation in this manner.
- Was there a bizarre smoke-and-mirrors approach to create confuse and mislead?
- The INDIA bloc voted as one against this methodical madness, overlooking their differences.
- Parties such as the Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Trinamool Congress, the Left and the DMK ensured floor coordination.
- The Telugu Desam Party and AIADMK, which spoke in favour of the Bill, on the strength of the Home Minister’s verbal assurances despite the conflicting language in the text, when Andhra Pradesh stood to lose five seats and Tamil Nadu 11 under the Bill’s own terms.
- It would now have to implement Women’s reservation through the constitutionally mandated route: complete the 2026-27 Census, and refer delimitation and Lok Sabha expansion to a parliamentary committee for genuine consensus.
- Political observers argued that the two-thirds threshold exists precisely to prevent far-reaching structural changes from being rammed through without broad agreement and this safeguard held today.