New Delhi, 16 April  

The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill to tweak the women's quota law was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday after a division of votes.

Two ordinary bills - the Delimitation Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill to implement the proposed amended women's quota law in Union territories of Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir - were also introduced in the House.

The Bills were introduced after a fiery 40-minute debate following which the opposition pressed for the division of votes to introduce the Constitutional (131st Amendment) Bill.

The Bill was later introduced with 251 members supporting itand 185 members voting against the introduction.

Congress' KC Venugopal questioned why the proposed changes in the women's quota law were not incorporated when it was passed earlier by Parliament.

"Bills to tweak the women's quota law and set up a delimitation panel are anti-constitutional," he said.

Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav questioned the rush to introduce the bills.

"We support women's quota in legislature but why not hold a census?" he asked.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah hit back, saying the Census 2027 is on and the Centre has also decided to go for caste enumeration, but reservation based on religion is "unconstitutional".

DMK members dressed in black clothes in the Lok Sabha to protest amendments to the women's reservation law.

"We favour the 2023 women's quota law, but the present Bill is aimed at delimitation," DMK's T R Baalu said.

RSP's NK Premchandran opposed the women's quota law amendment, saying it is not meant for reservation but delimitation.

Venugopal said a Constitutional amendment bill cannot be discussed together with other ordinary bills. Shah, however, rejected his objection saying it can be done.

Speaker Om Birla cited precedents to say that the Constitution amendment Bill can be discussed with other Bills as they relate to the same subject.

According to the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, Lok Sabha seats will be increased to a maximum of 850 from the current 543 to "operationalise" the women's reservation law before the 2029 parliamentary polls, following a delimitation exercise based on the 2011 Census.

Seats will also be increased in State and Union territory assemblies to accommodate 33 per cent reservation for women.

The seats reserved for women in the Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies "shall be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in a state or Union territory", the draft bill circulated among Lok Sabha members said.

Several opposition parties on Wednesday decided to united vote against the delimitation provisions in the Constitution amendment bill in Parliament, while asserting that they are not against reservation for women in legislative bodies.