One of India’s most eagerly anticipated pieces of legislation is likely the Women’s Reservation Bill. The measure, which, if passed, will reserve one-third of seats in Parliament for women, is anticipated to be transformative in ensuring that women have a sufficient voice in the country with the largest population, where they make up 50% of the populace.

On September 18, the extraordinary session of Parliament officially began. Since then, speculation has grown as to whether the Union administration will propose the measure during the session. In his speech to the Lok Sabha on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged lawmakers to make the special session, which will mark the transition from the old to the new Parliament on September 13, historic.

In the meantime, several other officials have advocated for the session’s passage of the women’s reservation measure. One example is Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, or KCR, who requested in a letter to PM Modi that the bill regarding women’s reservations be passed during the special session.

Before the start of the Parliament session, an effort was made to discuss the women’s reservation measure in the House of Representatives. There doesn’t appear to be any obvious opposition to the law right now, at least not in public. Therefore, it seems likely that the law will pass if the Centre decides to introduce it.

What is the Women’s Reservation Bill?

The Constitution (One Hundred and Eighth Amendment) Bill is another name for the Women’s Reservation Bill. Although the Rajya Sabha has already approved the bill, the Lok Sabha has not yet received a copy of it. The bill aims to allocate 33% of all Lok Sabha and state legislative assembly seats to female candidates. A person chosen by the Parliament will be in charge of allocating reserved seats.

7 Things to Know About Women’s Reservation Bill

A 33% seat reserve for women in Parliament and state legislative bodies is mandated by the Women’s Reserve Bill.

The Bill specifies that women from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes shall be entitled to one-third of the total number of seats allotted for such groups. The designated seats might rotate.

The Bill states that 15 years from the Amendment Act’s start date, the seats reserved for women will no longer be available.

Supporters of the Bill argue that affirmative action is vital to better the status of women and point to recent research showing how panchayat-level reservation empowered rural women.

The Bill’s opponents claim that it would uphold the stereotype that women lack equal rights and do not compete based on merit.

They go on to claim that the incentive for a member of Parliament to serve their constituency may be diminished by the rotation of constituencies between elections.

When the Constitution is changed to provide for the reservation of OBCs, it is advised that reservation be allowed for women who belong to Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Additionally, it suggested that the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils be included in the reservation program. Both of these suggestions have not been included in the Bill.

Why Is the Bill Hard To Pass?

The current electoral system, which employs the single transferable vote technique, is one of the main obstacles to the implementation of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha. Votes are allocated to favored candidates under this system, making it challenging to reserve seats for particular groups.

There are now no reservations for SCs and STs in the Rajya Sabha, and any move to add them would necessitate changing the voting process in the constitution.

Current Representation of Women In India

India has made progress in several areas, but women’s political representation is still appallingly low. According to data, the proportion of women MPs in the Lok Sabha is less than 15%, and in several state assemblies, it is even lower than 10%.

Several state assemblies, including those in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Odisha, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, and Puducherry, have less than 10% female representation, according to data from December 2022.

Ten to twelve percent of the legislators in states like Bihar, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi are women.

The states with the most female MLAs are Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and Jharkhand, with 14.44 percent, 13.7 percent, and 12.35 percent, respectively.

-Pragati Sengar