Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday launched a scathing attack on the government, moments after the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 failed to pass in the Lok Sabha, calling the bill’s defeat a successful defense against an “unconstitutional gimmick”.
Taking to social media and addressing reporters shortly after the House adjourned, Gandhi argued that the legislation was never meant to immediately empower women, but was rather a deliberate move to push through the controversial delimitation bill.
He praised the bloc unity of INDIA in defeating the bill in the Lok Sabha.
What did Gandhi say?
On X, Gandhi wrote: “The amendment fell. They used an unconstitutional trick in the name of women to violate the Constitution. India saw it. INDIA stopped it. Hail the Constitution.”\
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The opposition’s primary complaint centered on the government’s decision to link the introduction of a 33% quota for women to a general election in 2029 and the completion of a new census and delimitation.
The defeat represents a rare moment of effective parliamentary resistance for the INDIA bloc, which managed to deny the government the two-thirds majority it needed. The final result – 298 in favor and 230 against – fell well short of the threshold needed to amend the constitution.
By defeating the 131st Amendment, the opposition effectively stopped a related delimitation bill that they feared would penalize southern states for their successful population control measures.
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The government, represented by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, expressed disappointment at the result and accused the opposition of being “anti-women”.
The Constitution Amendment Bill to introduce women’s reservation from the 2029 general elections was defeated in the Lok Sabha on Friday, with opposition parties voting against it.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla announced the results of the division.” The proposal to amend the constitution (131st amendment) did not pass because it did not get a 2/3 majority in the House vote,” he said.
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Reacting to this, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, speaking to reporters, said, “It was a very convincing victory. The BJP fell 52 votes short of the two-thirds it needed to pass the constitutional amendment. We feel a certain sense of triumph. This is not a vote against women’s reservation, but against delimitation and the misery we have shown to save our democracy, to save our delimitation. Even in our speeches, we they said we would vote for women’s reservation if you separated it from the delimitation. We voted against their refusal to separate it.”
Congress MP Manish Tewari said, “It was not a reservation bill for women, it was a delimitation bill. We keep telling the government to reserve 181 seats out of 543 for women. But the government’s intention was not clear. It was basically a delimitation bill.”
Joining them, Deputy CM and Karnataka Congress leader DK Shivakumar said, “It is a victory for South India. It is a victory for the opposition parties. It is a victory for women in the country.”
Congress MP Karti Chidambaram said that we fully supported the Women’s Reservation Bill which was passed in 2023. The bill which was rejected is the Delimitation Bill; our support for women’s reservations still exists.”
Meanwhile, Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi said, “I believe that if PM Modi and the BJP government introduced a simple women’s reservation bill without any delineation or enumeration requirements, women’s reservation would have progressed significantly. The Women’s Reservation Act 2023 introduced by the government last night will be further implemented. But the political delimitation of women they wanted to do has been exposed across the country26.” Somewhere, BJP just wants to play politics and the country has understood that today.”
