Fadnavis announces state-wide drive for women’s bill

The Mahayuti’s campaign is against the INDIA bloc opposing the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s effort to push through a 33% quota for women in Parliament before the 2029 general election. The Narendra Modi-led NDA government suffered an embarrassing defeat during a vote on the reservation bill in parliament on April 17

MUMBAI: Calling April 17 a black day for democracy because of the “betrayal of women by opposition parties”, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced a state-wide campaign by the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra to collect over 10 million signatures from women in support of the Women’s Reservation Bill. Fadnavis said the Mahayuti government “will not rest” until the bill is passed.

Mumbai, India - April 20, 2026: CM Devendra Fadnavis addressing to media during the press conference held at IMC, Churchgate in Mumbai, India, on Monday, April 20, 2026. (Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar/Hindustan Times) (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo)

The alliance will roll out its campaign from Tuesday, starting with a women’s march from Jamboree Maidan in Worli to and the NSCI Dome at Haji Ali, in Mumbai. The march will end in a huge rally on Tuesday.

The Mahayuti’s campaign is against the INDIA bloc opposing the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s effort to push through a 33% quota for women in Parliament before the 2029 general election. The Narendra Modi-led NDA government suffered an embarrassing defeat during a vote on the reservation bill in parliament on April 17.

“We will expose the true face of the opposition before women in the state through this campaign. The opposition has engineered the foeticide of the Women’s Reservation Bill. When they won’t be able to face women after our campaign, all these parties will fall in line,” said Fadnavis.

Fadnavis also dared the opposition to a debate on the reservation issue, a challenge accepted by NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule, who asked the chief minister to fix the time and venue for a debate. Sule rebutted Fadnavis’s claim that, unlike the Congress, the BJP has given key positions to women. She said the Congress is credited with giving India its first woman president, first woman prime minister, first woman Lok Sabah speaker, first woman party president. “And we are proud that the first woman PM broke Pakistan into two,” she said.

Responding to the opposition’s charge that the NDA government’ is attempting to link the delimitation issue with the Women’s Reservation Bill, Fadnavis said the bills introduced in the Lok Sabha last week were in accordance with the women’s bill passed in 2023. “The three bills tabled were for a constitutional amendment for delimitation based on the 2011 census, implementation of the delimitation process, and provisions relating to Union territories. It would be childish to say the Women’s Reservation Bill was passed in 2023 itself. The bill passed in 2023 was based on the 2021 census, which could not take place because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The constitutional amendments made in 2002 and 2023 mandate that delimitation and the census be carried out together, and the bills introduced last week were in accordance with those provisions,” he said.

“The Modi government was flexible enough to avoid a north-south divide and decided on a 50% increase in the existing seats in the respective states. This would have led to an increase in the south’s representation to 23.87% from 23.78% now,” according to Fadnavis.

He claimed that by scuttling the bill, the opposition has not only deprived women of raising their strength in the Lok Sabha from 73 to 273, it has also deprived scheduled castes and tribes of greater representation.