New Delhi: On Friday morning, Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi called Trinamool Lok Sabha floor leader Abhishek Banerjee – who was busy campaigning in West Bengal. The result: The Trinamool Congress, which had earlier confirmed the presence of ten MPs while voting on the constitutional amendment speeding up reservation for women, sent 21 of its 28 legislators to the House.
The constitutional amendment was defeated by 298 votes to 230 on Friday, although it was clear from late Thursday that there was no way it could muster the required support.
During his speech on Thursday, Home Minister Amit Shah promised that the increase in seats across states would happen at a uniform rate of 50%, ensuring that their proportionate representation in the Lok Sabha remained what it currently is, but the government made no effort to include these numbers in the Constitution Amendment Bill or the Delimitation Commission Bill, 2026. In fact, his comments seemed at odds with the content of the latter, which said the allocation of seats across states would be done on the basis of the last census (2011 in this case).
He offered to do so on Friday, just before the vote, but it was too late, and it was not immediately clear whether his comment was merely a political polemic.
Analysts and some politicians from the opposition parties were concerned that the ongoing election campaigns in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu – after the Congress, the TMC, which rules Bengal, and the TMC, which rules Tamil Nadu, and which accounts for the largest number of MPs in the opposition camp – would sway attendance during the crucial session, in favor of the NDA.
“After the defeat of the bill, Rahul Gandhi called Abhishek Banerjee to thank him for playing a crucial role in defeating this bill. Banerjee and Gandhi spoke at length and discussed how if all the MPs were present, the number would have crossed 250,” said a TMC functionary who requested anonymity. Banerjee also expressed the view that the vote showed that “the tide is turning against the BJP,” this person added.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav also attended the party along with a large number of legislators from his party. “The government has miscalculated on TMC and SP,” a senior Congress strategist involved in compiling numbers against the legislation told HT.
As Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s response to the debate came to a close, Congress MP K Suresh was busy explaining to allies how to vote against the bill. Amused speaker Om Birla quipped that Suresh doesn’t need to teach people.
At 8.03pm, after the Constitution Amendment Bill was rejected due to lack of two-thirds majority support, Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted: “They used an unconstitutional trick in the name of women to break the Constitution. India saw it. India stopped it. Hail to the Constitution.”
“It seems their strategy has failed. They thought they would be able to break the unity of India’s alliance but that did not happen,” said Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas.
The alliance’s political victory comes at a time when it has lost key members like the AAP and its main component – the Congress – has suffered a series of defeats since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The hard-won unity also demonstrated the opposition’s ability to rally even amid bitter election battles and campaigns targeting each other at the state level.
When debates were underway in Lok Sabha, Mamata Banerjee, who is fighting her toughest election against the BJP, tweeted: “Never have I seen such a vengeful, anti-people, anti-democratic and divide-and-rule government. We support the Women’s Reservation Bill. The All India Trinamool Congress has 37% women in Parliament in Lithuania. To connect borders with this is disrespectful to mothers and sisters.”
Yadav, who challenged the Union home minister to commit to appointing a woman as chief minister, later said that the amendment was “conspiratorially introduced to divert attention from the growing public opposition and anger” and that it was a “defeat for the BJP”.
He added: “This is a victory for the awakened public consciousness of the country against the BJP. Today, the unity of India has proven that the BJP has lost the basis to remain in the government ‘morally’. The government that loses in Parliament must exit.”
