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After much rigorous debates, reasonings and questions, the Women’s Reservation Bill failed to pass in the Lok Sabha. The Bill intended to implement one-third women’s reservation in the Lok Sabha and the legislative assembly, failed to get the nod in the Lower House. The Bill fell short of the two-third majority of 352, out of the total 528 members present in the Lok Sabha, as 298 MPs voted in favour of it and 230 against the bill. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla announced the results of the voting, saying that it is not possible to move forward with this legislation as it failed to get the required majority for its passage. . This is the first major legislative defeat for the ruling NDA in 12 years.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju accused the opposition of losing the opportunity to provide reservations to women. Taking a dig at the opposition alliance, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that they have always backed down in decisions to give rights to women. Shah also criticised opposition parties for celebrating the failure of the bill. In a social media post, Shah said, “This celebration by the opposition is an insult to every woman who has been waiting for her rights for decades.”
Earlier, participating in the discussion, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, said that Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam is not a women’s reservation bill and it has nothing to do with the empowerment of women.
Two other bills, including one for delimitation and increasing the number of seats in the Lok Sabha, were not put to vote after the first one failed, with the Centre saying they were “intrinsically linked” to the legislation related to women’s reservation.
Leading the charge for the government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to allay a key fear of the Opposition parties and said he was personally guaranteeing that no injustice would be done to the southern states with the increase in seats in the Lok Sabha. “Let all of us not miss this important opportunity to give reservation to women. I have come to appeal to you – do not see this from a political lens, this is in national interest,” Modi said. Both Modi and Shah accused the Congress and other opposition parties of manufacturing issues to oppose the bill and deprive women of reservation. These parties, the BJP leaders said, would have to pay a price at the hustings for blocking the bill.
However, opposing the linking of the bill with delimitation, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi said the government was using the issue of women’s reservation as a smokescreen and was actually attempting to redraw the country’s electoral map in its favour. “This is not a women’s bill as it has nothing to do with empowerment of women. This bill is an attempt to change the country’s electoral map, using and hiding behind India’s women,” he alleged. Gandhi also claimed that the government was attempting to bypass the caste census. “They are trying to avoid giving power and representation to my OBC brothers and sisters, and instead take power away from them,” he said.
Meanwhile, Rijiju said the two other bills were “intrinsically interrelated” with it. “It is a matter of regret that the Opposition did not support such a historic and important bill meant to give respect and representation to the people of the country. You had an opportunity and you squandered it. The Modi government’s efforts and struggle to give rights to women will continue,” he said.
Shah said the Congress, Trinamool Congress, DMK, and Samajwadi Party did not allow the passage of the bill and termed their “celebration” of this “reprehensible”. “Now, the women of the country will not get the 33% reservation in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, which was their right. The Congress and its allies have done this not for the first time, but repeatedly. Their mindset is neither in the interest of women nor of the country,” he posted on X. “I want to tell them that this insult to Nari Shakti will not stop here; it will travel far and wide. The opposition will have to face the wrath of women not only in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, but at every level, in every election,” he added.
Rahul Gandhi reiterated that the legislation was an attack on the Constitution.
Delimitation was a clear attempt by the BJP to reduce the representation of Tamil Nadu, the Southern states, and the Northeast in Parliament.
We stopped it in Parliament and defeated this attack on the idea of India.
INDIA Alliance will always protect Tamil identity – and… pic.twitter.com/YUvk70bLoy
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 18, 2026
“As I said in the House, this bill was an attack on the Constitution, and we are glad that we have defeated it. This was not a Women’s Reservation Bill, but an attempt to change the electoral map of India. I want to tell the Prime Minister that if the government wants to implement the bill on women’s quota that was passed in 2023, the opposition will support it 100%,” he asserted. Gandhi also took to X minutes later and called the Centre’s plan an “unconstitutional trick” that failed because the opposition INDIA alliance stayed united. “Bharat has seen it. INDIA has stopped it,” he wrote.
This defeat should chasten the government. 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. The two-thirds threshold exists precisely to prevent far-reaching structural changes from being rammed through without broad agreement and this safeguard held today.
