The Constitution Amendment Bill to amend the Women’s Reservation Bill was defeated in the Lok Sabha after the government failed to get a special majority in Parliament on Friday evening.
While 298 members voted in favor of the government’s support for the Constitution Bill (Amendment No. 131), 230 members of the opposition voted against the proposed law.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said the bill failed to get a two-thirds majority in the House and postponed the proceedings.
“The Constitution Amendment Bill (131st Amendment) was not passed because it did not get a two-thirds majority during voting in the House,” Birla told the House.
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Two other bills, meant for delimitation and increasing the number of seats in the Lok Sabha, were not put to a vote in the House after the 131st Amendment Bill failed to get a two-thirds majority. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju announced that the government will no longer follow the two relevant legislations, the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 and the Delimitation Bill, 2026.
The vote in Lok Sabha comes after two days of marathon debates, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Minister Amit Shah, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi and other members spoke.
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While the NDA camp, led by Prime Minister Modi, Shah and Kiren Rijiju, argued in favor of two-thirds reservation for women, opposition members questioned the intent behind the law, with Rahul Gandhi saying it had “nothing to do with women empowerment”.
The defeat was triggered by attempts by the unified Opposition, with Leader of the Opposition in the House, Rahul Gandhi, reaching out to TMC Secretary General Abhishek Banerjee to unify votes against the motion.
