Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju lashed out at the opposition after the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill was defeated in the Lok Sabha on Friday, saying that they have "lost the opportunity of a historic moment". Rijiju's reaction came in the aftermath of the Bill securing 298 votes in favour and 230 against, thereby failing to cross the two-thirds majority threshold required for constitutional amendments.
"The results have come on such a historic and important Bill, which aimed at giving respect and rights to the country's women. The Opposition did not support it. It is very unfortunate," he said. "This historic moment was an opportunity which you (Opposition) have lost."
Rijiju addressed the House after a marathon debate on three contentious Bills, including the Delimitation Bill and the amendment to extend women’s quota to Union Territories. "Besides the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, we have two other bills, namely the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 and the Delimitation Bill, 2026, which are intrinsically interrelated with the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, so they cannot be viewed in isolation," he said.
"Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership, we will continue our campaign to give women their rights." However, the Union Minister confirmed that the government would not move ahead with the remaining two Bills. Notably, the Bill proposed to increase the Lok Sabha’s strength from 543 to 850 seats, a move tied to the long-delayed delimitation exercise that would redraw electoral boundaries based on population changes.
Alongside this, it aimed to operationalise the 33 per cent quota for women in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, a reform that had been promised but deferred until after the next delimitation. The government argued that the expansion and redistribution of seats was necessary to correct the imbalance between voters and representatives, a gap that has widened since the last delimitation froze boundaries based on the 1971 Census.
However, opposition parties countered that the government was using the promise of women’s empowerment as a cover for a political manoeuvre that would benefit northern states with higher population growth at the expense of southern states, which have managed to stabilise their demographics.