Govt plans Lok Sabha seat hike, women’s quota bill in April session

The Budget session of Parliament is unlikely to be adjourned sine die on Thursday as the Government is planning to summon it again for two-three days during the second fortnight of April to bring a bill to increase the number of Lok Sabha seats to 816 so that 273 of them could be reserved for women.

The budget session, which started on January 28, was supposed to end on April 2 but the Government is contemplating to extend it for two-three more days, albeit with a gap. Sources said the chair of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are likely to adjourn the respective houses and make the announcement that it would meet on a specific date.

“The House will not be adjourned sine die but will be adjourned with the announcement that it will meet again on a specific date. We will meet again very soon, in this month itself,” sources said.

During the extended period, the Government is expected to table the Constitution amendment bill that will tweak the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, commonly known as the women’s reservation law, in Parliament.

Home Minister Amit Shah discussed the plan with some NDA constituents and some non-Congress Opposition floor leaders. But consultations with the principal Opposition party, Congress and another major party, TMC, were yet to take place.

The provision to provide 33 per cent reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies was brought by amending the Constitution in 2023, but it will come into effect after the completion of the delimitation exercise.

According to the broad contours available, the number of Lok Sabha seats would be increased from the present 543 to 816, with 273 seats reserved for women. The reservation will also be done in a “vertical basis” with seats allocated for SCs and STs. The redrawing of the constituencies will be done on the basis of the 2011 census rather than the proposed 2027 census.

Once approved by Parliament, the proposed laws will come into force on March 31, 2029, and will help reserve seats for women in the next Lok Sabha elections and assembly elections in Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Andhra Pradesh. In September 2023, President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to the Nari Shakti Vandan Bill. The law is officially known as the Constitution (106th Amendment) Act.