Opinion | Parties That Backed Triple Talaq Want To Sneak Islamist Agenda Into Women’s Bill

Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav demanded in the Rajya Sabha that Muslim women be allocated a sub-quota within the 33 per cent Women’s Reservation Bill.

Hypocrisy is the cryptocurrency of politics. It is not legal tender, but still used widely to secure one’s clandestine interests.

Why else would the milk of sympathy of the very parties — SP, RJD, AIMIM, a section of Congress — that erupted with outrage over the Act outlawing instant triple talaq suddenly flow for creating a quota for Muslim women under the Women’s Reservation Bill?

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On April 10, 2026, Samajwadi Party MP Dharmendra Yadav demanded in the Rajya Sabha that Muslim women be allocated a sub-quota within the 33 per cent Women’s Reservation Bill or Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam.

Home Minister Amit Shah replied: “Dharmendra Yadav has made an unconstitutional statement. Our Constitution does not allow reservation on the basis of religion. Granting reservation to Muslims on religious grounds is unconstitutional, and the question of it does not arise."

Amit Shah reminded Yadav and the House that the Constitution of India did not permit reservation based on religion. Article 16(4) allows reservation only for socially and educationally backward classes, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes. But one cannot get reservation on the basis of religion.

Besides, Article 15(1) prohibits the State from discriminating against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. Creating a sub-quota for Muslim women (or any religious group) inside the women’s quota would violate the basic structure of the Constitution.

If one tries, courts would simply strike it down.

It is unlikely that Yadav, a four-time MP from Uttar Pradesh, is not aware that the Women’s Reservation Bill is a gender-based, horizontal reservation for women from all communities, and not a religion- or community-based quota. Yet, he grandstanded in Parliament about the condition of Muslim women and as a self-appointed spokesperson for women in particular.

But the same Opposition fought the banning of instant triple talaq tooth and nail. AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi called the Bill “unconstitutional", “anti-Muslim", and an “attack on Sharia". SP chief Akhilesh Yadav called it “an attack on Muslim personal law". Tejashwi Yadav and his RJD described the Bill as “unnecessary interference" in Muslim personal law. Sonia Gandhi called the Bill “arbitrary". All these parties voted against the Bill.

The same parties now argue that Muslim women are “doubly disadvantaged" — as women and as Muslims — and so they need special protection inside the 33 per cent women’s reservation.

Other than the unconstitutionality of that demand — in Indra Sawhney vs Union of India (1992), the Supreme Court clearly held that reservation cannot be granted on the basis of religion — it is patently unethical.

The Women’s Reservation Bill was passed to address gender inequality. The so-called ‘secular’ politicians are merely trying to communalise a gender-based law. It would open the floodgates for such demands from other religious groups like Sikhs, Christians, and Buddhists, eventually hijacking the women’s cause.

It will be akin to setting the hounds of vote-bank politics on genuine empowerment and dividing women on religious lines rather than unifying them as a gender.

And such demands flagrantly attacks and undermines the constitutional idea of equal citizenship.

Amit Shah is right. The communal wolf cannot be allowed to creep inside the skin of women’s empowerment.

Abhijit Majumder is the author of the book ‘India’s New Right’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.

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