In his April 11 reply to Modi’s letter to leaders of political parties seeking cross-party support for the bill to be taken up this week in Parliament to delink implementation of women’s quota from the next census and delimitation, Kharge reiterated the Opposition’s demand to convene an all-party meeting after the ongoing elections to discuss the provisions of the bill and delimitation plans.
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His letter comes ahead of a meeting of Opposition parties this week aimed at framing a common strategy against the government’s push. Pointing out that when Parliament unanimously passed the Women Reservation Act in 2023 he had urged the PM to implement it without delay, and yet no action was taken for the past 30 months, Kharge said, “It has been 30 months since then, and now this special sitting has been called without taking us into confidence and your government is seeking our cooperation again without revealing any details on the delimitation going to be done. You will appreciate that without details of the delimitation and other aspects, it would be impossible to have any useful discussion on this historic law.”
The Congress president further said, “You mention in your letter that your government has engaged in dialogue with political parties regarding this. However, I am pained to point out that this goes against the truth since all the Opposition parties have been urging the Government to call an all-party meeting after the current round of elections is over on April 29th 2026 to discuss the Constitution amendments being contemplated. The calling of a special sitting during the ongoing state elections only reinforces our belief that your government is hurrying the implementation of the bill to gain political mileage rather than truly empower women.”
Demanding a detailed discussion with all stakeholders on the proposed constitutional amendments, Kharge said, “If the special sitting is meant to ‘strengthen our democracy’ and ‘moving forward together, taking everyone along’ as you write in the letter, then I would suggest that the government convene an All-Party meeting any time after April 29th to discuss the delimitation issue.”
