Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday likened the Opposition’s vote against the Constitution Amendment Bill seeking to expand the Lok Sabha to “feticide”, and vowed that the government would not stop trying to give women their due share.
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In a 30-minute address to the nation, Modi said the Congress party is a parasite on regional parties and opposes any kind of reform due to selfish politics and insecurity. He added that the four major opposition parties — Congress, Samajwadi Party, Trinamool Congress and DMK — which helped block the amendments to Nari Shakti Vandhan Adhiniyam will face consequences.
What did Prime Minister Modi say?
He said: “(The bill) was introduced with good intentions and sincerity and it was an honest attempt. It was an attempt to make women partners in the progress of the country. It was an attempt to strengthen the voice of every state in Parliament, regardless of its size and population… But this sincere intention was aborted by the Congress and its allies. These four parties are responsible for the killing of female foetuses.”
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His speech came a day after the 131st Constitution Amendment Bill – which sought to raise the Lok Sabha floor to 850 and implement 33% reservation for women in time for the 2029 elections – was defeated by a united opposition that remained unwavering despite a dramatic last-minute offer by Union Home Minister Amit Shah to incorporate a 50% proportional increase for all states in the bill.
The government had proposed increasing the total number of seats in the House of Representatives and state assemblies by 50%, and confirmed that the proportional representation of states in Parliament would not change. Since this assertion was not written into the bills, it became a subject of major contention between the government and the opposition, which accused the government of trying to use women’s reservation as a ruse to implement delimitation by bypassing the ongoing population census and allowing electoral districts to be redrawn on the basis of the 2011 population census.
“Excuses to prevent women from obtaining their rights”
But in his televised speech, the Prime Minister described the opposition’s reasons as “excuses” for preventing women from obtaining their rights. Even as he referred to the Congress Party for trying to create obstacles in the way of women’s empowerment, he said that all the four “dynastic” parties had formed a unit to protect their own interests.
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“For us, the interest of the nation has priority. But when the interest of the party becomes everything for some people, when the interest of the party overshadows the interest of the nation… that is exactly what happened this time as well. Women in this country will bear the brunt of the selfish policies of the Congress, the TMC, the TMC and the Samajwadi Party,” he said.
Commenting on the result in Parliament on Friday, he said: “Yesterday, millions of women were watching the developments in Parliament. I felt very sad when I saw that when the bill that was in the interest of women was not passed, these ruling parties were celebrating… After taking away women’s rights, they were happy, and not only were they banging on the tables, but it was a blow to women’s self-esteem.”
The Prime Minister, who made several appeals to the opposition to pass the amendments by consensus, just like during the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill in 2023, said that although the government did not get the two-thirds majority required to pass the bills, it had “100% support” from women, who would not forget how the opposition insulted them.
“The opposition takes women for granted.”
Accusing the opposition of taking women “for granted”, he said: “They forget that women of the 21st century are watching every development. They can now see their intentions and fully realize the truth. Therefore, the sin committed by the opposition of opposing women’s reservation, will definitely be punished.”
The bill’s defeat on Friday was also the first time a government bill had been rejected in the House of Representatives since 2014.
The Prime Minister also refuted opposition claims that the bills would have affected the rights of the five southern states where population control measures had been successfully implemented. He said that the government has drawn up a plan to add more seats to all states across regions.
“This bill was not meant to take away or take anything from anyone. This bill was going to give one thing or the other to everyone. This was an amendment to give and not to take. The Nari Shakti Vandhan amendment is the need of the hour. It was an effort to ensure balanced empowerment in all regions including North, South, East and West and was aimed at strengthening the voice of every state in Parliament.”
It is certain that the draft law did not mention the relative increase in the number of seats.
Modi blamed Congress for misleading the masses and said parties like DMK and TMC were preventing more people from their states from coming to Parliament. Criticizing the Samajwadi Party, Modi said that the party was not only moving away from the principles of Ram Manohar Lohia, but was crushing those under its feet.
He said: “I had hoped that the Congress Party would want to correct its mistakes dating back decades. I thought they would atone for their sins, but the Congress Party missed the opportunity to stand with women and make history. The party has lost its popularity in large parts of the country and has become like a parasite, riding on the coattails of regional parties.” He accused the main opposition party, which played a major role in building consensus with other opposition parties to block the bills, of not wanting to empower regional leaders. “…So it forced them to oppose the amendments and pushed their future into darkness…”
“Anti-reform conference”
He said that one of the main reasons for opposing this amendment is that these ruling families fear that if women are empowered, their leadership will be in danger. “They will never want women from outside their families to come forward,” he said, adding that women who were elected to panchayats and local bodies are today ready to carve out space in assemblies and Parliament, which has made these parties insecure.
“The country will never forgive the Congress and its allies for this sin… They have been constantly lying about border demarcation and stoking the fire of division because they inherited the divide and rule policy from the British and were using it as a support for their survival,” he said. He said the opposition party, which he dubbed an “anti-reform” party, opposed every reform from ban on triple talaq to abrogation of Article 370, Citizenship Amendment Act, among others.
“There is one pattern that emerges, which is to oppose any reform and lie about it. History has witnessed that the Congress party has always chosen this negative path… Because of their stance, India has not been able to rise to the levels of development that it rightly deserves,” he said. He said the anti-reform policies of the Congress had taken a toll on the country and expressed confidence that women would provide a useful response to this mentality.
He said: “Some people believe that it is the government’s failure that shatters women’s dreams. But success or failure was not the problem. I said in Parliament that by allowing 50% of the population to have their rights, I give credit to the opposition.”
Opposition parties rejected the Prime Minister’s claims and accused him of misleading the public. “A desperate and frustrated Prime Minister who has had nothing meaningful for the past 12 years has turned an official address to the nation into a political speech full of defamation and outright lies,” Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge said.
Confronting Modi, senior TMC lawmaker Derek O’Brien said: “The worst form of insulting women is using them as a trap to try to pass the demarcation bill.”
