India plans more seats for women in parliament, links it to ‘delimitation’

The Indian government is seeking to expedite the implementation of a 2023 law that reserves 33 percent of seats in parliament and state assemblies for women, but has linked the move to a sweeping redrawing of parliamentary constituencies, sharpening political tensions.

“We’re set to take historic steps to empower women,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said before a special sitting of parliament on Thursday as his government introduced three bills to be debated in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.

While two of the three bills relate to extending the number of women in parliament and state assemblies, a third bill relates to “delimitation”, as the process to redraw parliamentary boundaries based on population is called in India. The bill aims to increase the overall size of parliament from 543 Lok Sabha seats to 850.

The bills are being taken up during a three-day special session and will require a two-thirds majority in both houses to pass. Modi’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) holds 293 seats in lower house of parliament while a two-thirds majority would require 360 votes.

Women currently account for 14 percent of the Lok Sabha members. “We are all united to give rightful positions to women in India,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said on Thursday.

Several Asian countries, including India’s neighbours like Nepal and Bangladesh, have similar quotas for women in national legislatures. India already mandates that one-third of seats be set aside for women in local governing bodies.

Opposition alleges ‘gerrymandering’

While there appears to be broad bipartisan support for putting more women into parliament, opposition parties have raised concerns over changing the voting boundaries, warning it could tilt the political balance in favour of Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP draws much of its support from the densely populated north, and critics said expanding seats in parliament would, therefore, benefit it the most. Leaders in southern states, where birth rates have declined more sharply, said a population-based delimitation exercise could increase seats in the north and disadvantage southern regions that have slowed population growth and built stronger economies.

The Indian Constitution mandates that parliamentary seats be allocated by population and revised after each census. However, boundaries have not been redrawn since the 1971 census as successive governments delayed the process.

The government is now proposing that delimitation of new seats be based on the last completed census, in 2011, and come into effect for the next general election in 2029.

But opposition parties want the government to wait for the results of an ongoing census, which was launched this month, a formidable logistical challenge that will take a year to carry out – and even longer for the data to be processed.

The main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, said that while his Indian National Congress party supports increasing the number of women in parliament, the government’s approach is aimed at consolidating power.

“The proposal that the government is now bringing has no connection to women’s reservation,” Gandhi said in a statement on social media. “It is merely an attempt to seize power through delimitation and gerrymandering.”

Congress parliamentarian Gaurav Gogoi alleged that the intention of the government was not to implement women’s reservation but to introduce delimitation “through the backdoor”, according to a report in India’s Scroll.in website.

Akhilesh Yadav, member of parliament from the Samajwadi Party, asked whether Muslims will be given some kind of reservation within the quota for women, The Indian Express reported.

The BJP pushed back on the criticism, saying it would implement a uniform 50 percent increase in seats across all states and maintain proportional representation nationwide. However, the draft delimitation bill does not explicitly spell this out.

Speaking in parliament, Modi said the legislation is “not discriminatory” and “will not do injustice to anyone”.

But the opposition was not convinced. Some members from southern states turned up in parliament dressed in black as a mark of protest.

MK Stalin, chief minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu and a rival to the BJP, burned a copy of the bill and raised a black flag in protest, urging people across the state to do the same.

“Let the flames of resistance spread across Tamil Nadu,” Stalin said, accusing the BJP of trying to marginalise the state through redrawn boundaries. “Let the arrogance of the fascist BJP be brought down.”