With the government indicating the commencement of work on the Census, there’s a chance that the implementation of the constitution amendment providing 33% reservation for women in Parliament and state assemblies may happen in time for the 2029 national election.
According to the amendment, the reservation of seats for women in the House of the People, the legislative assembly of a state and the legislative assembly of the National Capital Territory of Delhi “shall come into effect after an exercise of delimitation is undertaken for this purpose after the relevant figures for the first census taken after commencement of the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Amendment) Act, 2023 have been published…”
Although the provisions do not specify how these constituencies would be identified, the amendment seeks to earmark one-third of the total number of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to be reserved for women from these groups. These reserved seats may be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in the state or Union Territory.
The amendment that needs to be ratified by 50% of the states envisages that reservation of seats for women will continue for a term of 15 years and these will be rotated once every 10 years.
{{/usCountry}}The amendment that needs to be ratified by 50% of the states envisages that reservation of seats for women will continue for a term of 15 years and these will be rotated once every 10 years.
{{/usCountry}}The 42nd Amendment froze the delimitation exercise until the results of the first Census after 2000 was published; in 2001, the freeze was extended for 25 years. The delimitation will now based on the first Census after 2026. Some analysts believe that the two radical changes -- delimitation, which will increase the number of seats in the Lok Sabha, and women’s reservation, which will reserve a third of seats in it for women -- will be done simultaneously.