After informal feelers failed to bring the Congress and other Opposition parties to the table to discuss accelerating the implementation of the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, popularly known as the Women’s Reservation Act, 2023, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju wrote to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday (March 16, 2026) reiterating the request. The Congress, in response, once again conveyed that the issue should be discussed in an all‑party meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Writing to Mr. Kharge, Mr. Rijiju underlined the significance of the implementation framework and the requirement of a broad national consensus for the effective operationalisation of the law.
Congress urges government to hold an all‑party meeting on women’s quota law
The government, according to sources, wants to omit two key steps in the implementation of the Act — completion of the census report, which is expected only by mid‑2027 after the census is completed by March 2027, and delimitation, which will redraw the boundaries of the Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies. Because of these two steps, the timeline for reserving 33% of seats in elected legislative bodies remained ambiguous. The indefinite timeline for implementation was one of the Opposition’s main criticisms when the government brought the law to Parliament in September 2023.
