The Long Wait for Women’s Representation

The Parliament has recently ratified the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill, 2023 to reserve one-third or 33% of the seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women. Officially called the “Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam,” the bill was passed with a near unanimous support in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. It mandates that one-third of all seats in the Lok Sabha, state legislative assemblies, and Delhi, which is a union territory with an elected assembly, will be reserved for women.

It also proposed that women will get one-third of the seats allocated for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) on a periodic and rotational basis. With one-third seats being reserved for women in panchayati raj institutions, state assemblies, and the Lok Sabha, India can now boast of having guaranteed women’s representation at almost all institutional levels of its electoral democracy.