Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi struck a lighter tone with Union Home Minister Amit Shah during her speech on women’s reservation and the constitutional amendment bill in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
Without batting an eye, Gandhi stopped his speech in the Lok Sabha to point out that Amit Shah was “laughing” during his remarks.
“Griha Mantri is enjoying herself… the whole scheme is perpetuated. If he were alive today, he would also be shocked by his political cunning…,” she told Shah mid-speech.
Her statement roughly reads: “The Home Minister is laughing…he has already planned all this. If Chanakya were alive today, he would be shocked at your political cunning.”
She made her comments while highlighting several issues with the Constitution (131st Amendment) Act of 2026, which seeks to tweak the Women’s Quota Act.
“On one hand they are talking about women’s reservation and on the other they are secretly robbing the rights of the OBC community and weakening the power of some states by destroying democracy and strengthening their party for the next elections,” Priyanka Gandhi said in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
She said “the debate is not about women’s reservation”. Rather, the opposition is questioning why the government wants delimitation based on SLDB 2011.
“It was written in the (Women’s Reservation) Act that it will be implemented only after a census is taken across the country. But what has suddenly changed? Why now does the same government want to go ahead with the old census? and why is it in such a hurry?,” she asked.
Priyanka Gandhi claimed that a new census would reveal the exact number of OBCs currently residing in the country. “It would reveal how big this community is,” she said.
She also questioned why there was no process in the amended bill to implement reservation and delimitation of women.
Priyanka Gandhi went on to say that the Prime Minister “spoke only half the truth”.
“He told the House that there was opposition but he did not make it clear who was actually against it. He said there was opposition but he did not specify who. In fact it was you, the BJP, who were against it. A few years later, under the leadership of former prime minister PV Narasimha Rao, the Congress government passed this bill in Parliament and implemented it,” she said on Thursday.
Three bills introduced in the Lok Sabha on 16 April
The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill to amend the Women’s Quota Act was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday after a split vote.
Two ordinary bills were also introduced in the House – the Delimitation Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill to implement the proposed amended Women’s Quota Act in the Union Territories of Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir.
Introducing the bill, Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal says, “The Women’s Reservation Act was passed in 2023 and provides for the implementation of its provisions based on the post-2026 census and delimitation.”
He said, “There will be an equal, 50% increase in the strength of Lok Sabha members, and this will translate into 815 seats, of which 272 will be reserved for women, which is one-third of the strength of the House. No one (states) will lose and they will retain their strength.”
