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3 min readNew DelhiApr 17, 2026 09:03 PM IST
The Opposition hailed the move as “historic”. (File photo)
After the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirty-First Amendment) Bill, 2026, failed to get the Lok Sabha’s seal of approval on Friday, the Opposition hailed it as “historic”, saying the BJP-led NDA government used an “unconstitutional trick” in the name of women to break the Constitution.
In his first reaction after the Bill failed to make its way through the Lower House, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi of the Congress posted on X, “The amendment bill has fallen. They used an unconstitutional trick in the name of women to break the Constitution. India has seen it. INDIA (bloc) has stopped it. Hail the Constitution.”
Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav said the BJP’s “deceitful chariot” has been stopped once again. “Now they’ll say their efforts fell short,” said the former UP CM, who leads the largest Opposition party in the Lower House after the Congress.
INDIA bloc constituent and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin said the state had “defeated Delhi”.“On April 23 (elections), we will defeat Delhi’s arrogance — and the slaves who support that arrogance — together,” wrote Stalin, posting a portrait of him setting fire to a copy of the delimitation Bill.
The Congress’s communications chief Jairam Ramesh said, “The nefarious and mischievous attempt of the PM and HM to link their dangerous delimitation proposals to women’s reservation has been decisively defeated in the Lok Sabha.”
“This is a win for our democracy, our federalism, and the Constitution. This also calls into question the legitimacy of the non-biological, non-grihasthi PM,” Ramesh, a Rajya Sabha MP, said in a statement.
He said the next steps for the Modi government were clear: they should implement 33% reservation for women in the existing Lok Sabha set-up for the 2029 elections. “This has been the consistent demand of the entire Opposition ever since September 2023 when the Parliament unanimously passed the Nari Shakti Vandan Act 2023 – which finally got notified only late last night,” said the Congress leader.
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The Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha, Sagarika Ghose, described the Lok Sabha vote as a “historic defeat” of the government’s “devious attempt” to change the country’s political map. “This was a devious attempt by the government to undermine federalism. This was never about women’s reservation. It was only about the BJP’s ‘nara shakti (slogan power)’ and not about ‘nari shakti (women’s power)’,” Ghose told The Indian Express.
Asad Rehman is with the national bureau of The Indian Express and covers politics and policy focusing on religious minorities in India. A journalist for over eight years, Rehman moved to this role after covering Uttar Pradesh for five years for The Indian Express. During his time in Uttar Pradesh, he covered politics, crime, health, and human rights among other issues. He did extensive ground reports and covered the protests against the new citizenship law during which many were killed in the state. During the Covid pandemic, he did extensive ground reporting on the migration of workers from the metropolitan cities to villages in Uttar Pradesh. He has also covered some landmark litigations, including the Babri Masjid-Ram temple case and the ongoing Gyanvapi-Kashi Vishwanath temple dispute. Prior to that, he worked on The Indian Express national desk for three years where he was a copy editor. Rehman studied at La Martiniere, Lucknow and then went on to do a bachelor's degree in History from Ramjas College, Delhi University. He also has a Masters degree from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. ... Read More
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