Watch | Shrouded in Secrecy: Women’s Reservation and Delimitation Bills

Name: Watch | Shrouded in Secrecy: Women’s Reservation and Delimitation Bills - The Wire
Uploaded: 2026-04-16T15:06:36+05:30
Channel: The Wire
Description: Information about the proposed laws is reaching people only through media reports based on “sources”, in a flagrant violation of the fundamental right to information and the principles laid out in the Pre-legislative Consultation Policy.

Information about the proposed laws is reaching people only through media reports based on “sources”, in a flagrant violation of the fundamental right to information and the principles laid out in the Pre-legislative Consultation Policy.

Anjali Bhardwaj

There has been complete lack of transparency regarding the draft legislations proposed to be taken up during the 3-day special extension of the budget session of parliament scheduled to be held from April 16 to April 18. As per media reports, the cabinet has cleared three bills to ostensibly pave the way for 33% reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies from 2029.

These include an amendment to the Women’s Reservation Act (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam), a Delimitation Bill and a separate bill to extend the quota to Union Territories. The draft legislations propose to raise the Lok Sabha's strength from 543 to 816 and total assembly seats from 4,123 to 6,186.

The laws will fundamentally re-shape India’s electoral democracy and impact every voter in the country. Further, information about the proposed laws is reaching people only through media reports based on “sources”. This is a flagrant violation of peoples’ fundamental right to information and the principles laid out in the Pre-legislative Consultation Policy.

Given the tremendous impact the three legislations will have on our democracy, the government must:

⁠make the text of the draft bills public immediately and ensure wide dissemination through various modes, and in multiples languages;
put the draft bills through robust public consultation, in line with the Pre-legislative Consultation Policy. While it is imperative to ensure reservation for women in legislature as quickly as possible, the secretive, non-democratic manner in which the proposed legislations are being brought is extremely problematic.

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This article went live on April sixteenth, two thousand twenty six, at six minutes past three in the afternoon.

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