UP govt suspends meetings to ensure full attendance in assembly session on women reservation bill

Lucknow: The state govt has suspended all district and divisional-level meetings requiring attendance of MLAs and MLCs across the state, in an apparent bid to ensure maximum attendance of legislators during the special session of the UP Assembly on April 30.The daylong session of the Assembly — second of the 2026-27 fiscal — has been convened to hold discussion on the recently defeated 131st Constitutional Amendment Bill that sought to advance women reservation in the Lok Sabha and state legislatures from 2029.The parliamentary affairs department, in a communiqué sent to all DMs and divisional commissioners, reiterated the 1998 govt order, which directed the authorities not to hold district or divisional-level meetings requiring the attendance of legislators during the ongoing session of the Assembly or Parliament.The meeting, if inevitable, may, however, be called when there was no sitting of Parliament or the Assembly for three straight days, the communiqué pointed out.Sources said that by ensuring full attendance of all MLAs and MLCs, the ruling BJP aimed to effectively centralise the messaging around the politically charged national issue of the women reservation bill.BJP sources said that the party sought full attendance of its legislators to project unity.

The state govt, not surprisingly, invoked a long-standing rule to do away with the distraction or conflicting local engagements of the MLAs. This prevents the MLAs from getting pulled into constituency-level pressures and getting absent or divided in attention over a critical debate.“Effectively, it is more about optics than governance,” said a BJP MLA. The debate over the women reservation bill has created a narrative battle between the BJP and the opposition, primarily the Samajwadi Party and its ally, the Congress. The square-off has been attaining much pertinence against the backdrop of the high-stakes UP Assembly elections scheduled early next year.Analysts said that even though it was a state Assembly session, the issue clearly had national implications, especially in UP, where women voters have been becoming increasingly decisive.The session is equally important for the opposition, which can ratchet up questions as to why and how the bill got defeated. Sources said that the SP and Congress planned to frame the ruling BJP as symbolic rather than substantive on women issues.