Women’s reservation in Parliament has already waited far too long. Making its implementation conditional on delimitation is unacceptable, especially when delimitation itself has remained frozen for decades and is unlikely to be completed before 2027. In effect, this means meaningful representation for women may not materialise until 2034. A 33% reservation within the existing 543 Lok Sabha seats is entirely possible without waiting for a fresh census or delimitation exercise. Yet, successive governments as well as opposition parties have treated the issue as one of political convenience rather than democratic necessity. Women across the country, cutting across party lines, are asking for something simple: seats, not speeches. The Women’s Reservation Bill ” the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill, 2023 ” was passed by the Lok Sabha on September 20, 2023, and by the Rajya Sabha the following day. Parliament must now delink reservation from delimitation and announce a clear implementation timeline. As former Peruvian Prime Minister Beatriz Merino observed, progress comes through cross-party consensus, not public posturing. India already has the law; what is missing is the political will to act.
