Congress Accuses PM Modi of Delaying the Women's Reservation Bill

By: WE Staff | Tuesday, 21 April 2026

• Congress accuses Narendra Modi of delaying the Women’s Reservation Bill
• Party demands quick implementation, alleges government is stalling despite long-pending bill
• Rahul Gandhi’s 2018 letter urging immediate passage is resurfaced

The Congress party has alleged that the Prime Minister is deliberately postponing the implementation of women's reservations in legislatures and linking that possible implementation with the delimitation process. Meanwhile, they have cited an old letter from Rahul Gandhi requesting that the Prime Minister implement the women's reservation bill immediately following his appointment as Congress President in July 2018. Signature of Jairam Ramesh - Congress General Secretary in Charge of Communication.

"Eight years later, the Prime Minister - keen to delay the implementation of reservations by linking it to delimitation - is still to act on this demand," Jairam said.

He likewise sent the PM a copy of Rahul’s 2018 letter in which he requested the PM’s help to pass the upcoming Women Reservations Bill in Parliament that season.

"As you are aware, the Women's Reservation Bill, passed by the Rajya Sabha on the 9th of March, 2010, has been stalled on one pretext or the other, in the Lok Sabha, for over eight years now. When this bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha with the support of the BJP, the then leader of the opposition, Arun Jaitley ji, called the passage of the bill 'historic and momentous'.

Since then, while the Congress party has been unwavering in its commitment to the bill, the BJP appears to have had second thoughts, even though this was one of its key promises in its 2014 manifesto," Rahul had said.

"Mr. Prime Minister, in many of your public rallies you have spoken about your passion for empowering women and involving them more meaningfully in public life. What better way to demonstrate your commitment to the cause of women, than by offering your unconditional support to the passage of the Women's Reservation Bill? And what better time than the upcoming session of Parliament? Any further delay will make it impossible to implement before the next general elections," Rahul had added.

"On the issue of empowering our women, let us stand together, rise above party politics and send India a message that we believe the time for change has come. Women must take their rightful place in our state legislatures and in Parliament, where they are at present abysmally represented," Rahul had said in his letter to PM Modi.

Congress party condemned the Government's plan to implement a women's quota, saying that the government was only trying to preserve Prime Minister Modi's power and not actually create a mechanism to reserve seats for women.

They also stated that the government should implement the women's quota by the end of May with a new version of the bill in the Parliament's Monsoon Session. The bill was rejected in the Lok Sabha on Friday, with 298 voting in favor and 230 against it.

A total of 528 members voted on the bill, which required 352 votes to pass. The bill proposed to increase the number of Lok Sabha members from 543 to 816 to "operationalise" the women's reservation law prior to the 2029 Parliamentary elections and conduct a delimitation review on the 2011 census. It also proposed to increase the number of women in State Assemblies and Union Territories by providing for a 33 percent reservation for women.