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New Delhi: Ahead of the parliament’s special session next week, being held to amend the Women’s Reservation Act for its early implementation, Congress president and leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge has told Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a letter that “without details of the delimitation and other aspects, it would be impossible to have any useful discussion on this historic law.”

The special session comes after the government’s outreach to parties to bring an amendment to the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Amendment) Act, 2023 to delink it from the delimitation exercise. The Act, passed unanimously by parliament in 2023, seeks to provide 33% reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies. 

On Saturday (April 11), Modi, in a letter to floor leaders in parliament said that after “extensive deliberations” the government has reached the conclusion that the time has come to implement the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam and that he is writing this letter so “we may all come together in one voice to pass this amendment.”

Kharge, in his response, also dated April 11, wrote that it has been 30 months since the legislation was passed by parliament, and the special session has been called without taking the opposition into confidence, or providing any details on how delimitation is going to be done.

The 2023 Act provides that the “provisions relating to the reservation of seats for women … shall come into effect after an exercise of delimitation is undertaken for this purpose after the relevant figures for the first census taken after [the Bill is passed] have been published.”

The process for the census 2027 is currently underway.

“It has been 30 months since then, and now this special sitting has been called without taking us into confidence and your government is seeking our cooperation again without revealing any details on the delimitation going to be done. You will appreciate that without details of the delimitation and other aspects, it would be impossible to have any useful discussion on this historic law,” he wrote.

“You mention in your letter that your government has engaged in dialogue with political parties regarding this. However, I am pained to point out that this goes against the truth since all the Opposition parties have been urging the Government to call an All-Party meeting after the current round of elections is over on April 29th 2026 to discuss the Constitution amendments being contemplated,” Kharge’s letter said.

The Wire had reported that last month that amid the government’s outreach, opposition parties had written a joint letter to Union minister for parliamentary affairs Kiren Rijiju seeking an all-party meeting to be held after the ongoing assembly elections to discuss the implementation of the Women’s Reservation Act.

Kharge in his letter to Modi on Friday said that the move to call a special session during the assembly elections “only reinforces our belief that your government is hurrying the implementation of the bill to gain political mileage rather than truly empower women.”

“If the special sitting is meant to ‘strengthen our democracy’ and ‘moving forward together, taking everyone along’ as you write in the letter, then I would suggest that the government convene an All-Party meeting any time after April 29th to discuss the delimitation issue which is being linked to the amendment to the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023,” wrote Kharge.

The special session of parliament is due to be held from April 16 to 18, just weeks after the second half of the Budget session concluded.

© The Wire