TR News Desk
The Constitution Amendment Bill aimed at modifying the Women’s Reservation Bill was defeated in the Lok Sabha after the government failed to secure a special majority in Parliament on Friday evening. While 298 members voted in favour of the government-backed Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 230 members from the opposition voted against the proposed law.Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla announced that the bill failed to obtain the required two-thirds majority in the House and adjourned the proceedings.”The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill did not pass as it did not achieve a two-thirds majority during voting in the House,” Birla told the members.
Two other bills—intended for delimitation and increasing the number of seats in the Lok Sabha—were not put to a vote in the Lower House after the 131st Amendment Bill failed to secure the necessary two-thirds majority. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju announced that the government would no longer pursue the two related pieces of legislation: the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, and the Delimitation Bill, 2026.
The voting in the Lok Sabha came after two days of marathon debates, during which Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Minister Amit Shah, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, and other members addressed the House.While the NDA camp, led by Modi, Shah, and Rijiju, argued in favour of providing two-thirds reservation for women, opposition members questioned the intention behind the law. Rahul Gandhi stated that the proposal had “nothing to do with women’s empowerment.”The defeat was attributed to the efforts of a united opposition, with the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, reaching out to TMC General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee to consolidate votes against the motion.
