Women have emerged as a formidable force in Indian politics. The numbers of women voters nearly match those of men in general and have been found to outmatch men in recent assembly elections. With 1.5 million women holding elected positions in Panchayati Raj institutions, they have proved their mettle in local governance.

Their numbers drop to 13.8 per cent in the Lok Sabha, and so the move to introduce the Women Reservation Bill in the three-day special session of Parliament is a welcome step. This constitutional amendment will raise women’s representation to almost one-third of the House, bringing it closer to global norms.

Debate over delimitation and census linkage

The Modi government has chosen to tie its rollout to the controversial delimitation exercise based on the 2011 census. The opposition parties have seen red. While some have described the delimitation exercise as a Trojan horse being brought in to stymie this 30-year-old WRB yet again, others question why a special session of Parliament has been convened just a few days before voting is set to take place in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

Critics also question why this delimitation exercise will be based on 2011 census data, given that a new census has been kickstarted this year. As Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav said on the floor of the House, “If the SIR exercise could be completed in a period of two months in Bihar, why cannot the 2026 census be completed in a timely manner?”

Economists led by Prof. Santosh Mehrotra also question that, with the population crossing over 250 million from the last conducted census in 2011, why can’t the government factor in the latest census data before undertaking such a mammoth exercise?

The government has said that waiting for new census data would push delimitation—and with it women's reservation—well beyond 2029, thereby delaying a long-promised........

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