Government slams Congress for defeating women’s reservation bill by raising ‘needless ifs and buts’
18 April, 2026 – New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation tonight at 8.30 pm, a day after a government-backed Bill proposing 33 per cent reservation for women failed in the Lok Sabha amid opposition from the Congress and its allies.
The Prime Minister, who did not speak after the Bill fell, is expected to make his own and the BJP-led NDA’s stand on the women’s reservation issue clear.
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The government, led in the debate by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, slammed the Congress for defeating the three-decade-old women’s quota agenda by raising “needless ifs and buts”. Shah said the opposition would need to face the “wrath of women” in elections now that they have defeated the women’s quota issue for the fifth time in 30 years.
The BJP also fielded former law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who questioned how the Congress could advocate readjustment of seats without delimitation. “Revision of seats of the Lok Sabha cannot be done without the process or delimitation. What Congress is advocating is constitutionally illiterate. Else they pretend not to know anything about the Constitution,” Prasad said.
On Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi’s statement that women’s reservation be done in the current 543 seats, Prasad said, “How can reservation be given on 543 seats which are based on the population of 1971 when we had 54 crore people as against 140 crore today?”
He added that if 543 seats were readjusted, all southern states would lose Lok Sabha seats to the extent of five to ten seats.
Former minister Smriti Irani attacked the Congress for making a variety of excuses to defeat the women’s reservation agenda. Irani said Priyanka and Gandhi’s who have inherited political representation as a privilege can never appreciate the intention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi behind a move that seeks to empower a common woman.
The Tribune