New Delhi, April 16: Speaking on the bill in the Lok Sabha on April 16, 2026, Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra asked the Prime Minister to be sincere in implementing women’s reservation and assured him that the entire opposition would stand with him. She asked why women could not be given reservation within the existing strength of the House and why reservations could not also be ensured for SC, ST and the OBC women.

Assuring full support for women’s reservation to the government if done with honesty, AICC General Secretary Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to implement it within the existing strength of the Lok Sabha, along with reservation for SC, ST and OBC women. Otherwise, she warned, if the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirty-First Amendment) Bill, 2026, is passed in its current form, democracy will be undermined in India.

“This government is attacking democracy openly”, she remarked, while warning that the government is once again undermining the country’s integrity by misleading the public. She pointed out that the same government had unanimously passed the Women Reservation Bill in 2023 with a condition that it will be implemented after a fresh census followed by delimitation. What happened all of a sudden that the government backed out and decided to carry out the delimitation and women’s reservation based on the 2011 census instead of doing it on the basis of a fresh census, she asked, adding, the main purpose behind it was to deny the OBC women their rights. She pointed out, since there is no data on OBCs in the 2011 census, it will mean denial of reservation rights to the women belonging to the backward communities.

She stated that today’s debate was not on Women Reservation, but on the proposal to increase the number of Lok Sabha seats from 543 to 850. She noted that according to the bill, the Delimitation Commission will be constituted to work on the basis of the 2011 census.

Referring to 33% reservation for women in local bodies first brought by Rajiv Gandhi government and taking a dig at the Prime Minister for speaking half-truths, she said, “Today the Prime Minister also mentioned it, but as usual he told only half of the story. The Prime Minister said that at that time, there was opposition to this provision, but he did not say who opposed it. The truth is that it was the BJP that opposed this bill earlier”.

Making a strong case for caste census before delimitation, Ms. Vadra noted that the question of representation is linked to the question of population. “Unless there is a caste census, all classes cannot get proper representation. The government wants to proceed on the basis of the 2011 census because it does not include the number of OBCs”.

Referring to the proposal of 50% expansion of Parliament in the bill, she said, there is not a single word about any concrete process for this. “One wonders what the rules for such a major change will be, there is not a single word in the entire bill about it”, she noted, adding, “despite the hollow assurances of the Prime Minister and other ministers, it is certain that the representation of the states in the Parliament will be reduced through this bill.”

Maintaining that the purpose of delimitation was to stay in power, she cited the example of Assam, saying, “Just as in Assam, they redrew seats as they wanted, split the constituencies of Opposition leaders and created new boundaries for their own benefit; the same is what they want to do in the whole country.”

AICC General Secretary and MP Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra traced the history of equal rights to women to the Congress, citing the 1931 Congress session of Karachi which adopted the 19 fundamental rights formulated by Pandit Motilal Nehru including ‘One citizen, One vote, One value’. She noted, while in India, women got right to vote since day one of independence, in a country like the US, it took them over 150 years.

She said that the Congress under the leadership of then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and then Congress President Smt. Sonia Gandhi attempted to bring in women’s reservation in 2010. While the bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha, it could not be passed in the Lok Sabha then.

She also mentioned that Rahul Gandhi had written to the Prime Minister in 2018 to bring in women’s reservation and implement it from the 2019 General Elections. Eventually, the law was passed unanimously in 2023. “Indian National Congress has always fully supported the idea of women’s reservation and there should be no doubt even now, INC stands for women reservation”, she asserted.

Victory of Democracy, says Smt. Priyanka on govt’s defeat in Parliament

‘You can’t claim to be women’s messiah just by standing in Parliament’

New Delhi: Addressing a press conference at the AICC office along with General Secretary in-charge of communications Shri Jairam Ramesh on April 18, 2026, AICC General Secretary and MP Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra described the defeat of the Women Reservation Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha on April 17, 2026, as “Victory of Democracy”, saying, the united Opposition “defeated the government conspiracy to alter the federal structure and the Constitution.”

She said, “It is victory of the Constitution, victory of the country and the victory of the unity of the Opposition”, she remarked, while noting, “defeat was visible on the faces of the ruling party leaders yesterday.”

She referred to the speeches of the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister wherein they stated that if the Opposition did not agree with the bill, they (the opposition) can never come to power and never win.”This makes their intentions obvious”, she said, while adding, “the entire conspiracy was for sticking to power somehow, one way or the other.” The Congress General Secretary said that their plan was to permanently stick to power and bring in the delimitation on the basis of the 2011 census, in the name of women reservation. She said that they thought if the bill is passed, they would manage delimitation in an arbitrary manner and since it would be based on 2011 census, they would not have to take caste data into consideration for women reservation. They believed, she said about the government, “if it does not get passed, we will malign the Opposition and project them as being against the women.” “You can’t claim to be the messiah of the women for nothing, just because you stand in the Parliament and speak for women reservation”, she told the powers that be, while saying, “The BJP has a history regarding women - their attitude in Unnao and Hathras incidents, the treatment meted out to women Olympians and the women in Manipur.”

Asserting that it was quite clear that the bill brought by the govt was not about women reservation but about delimitation and the government wanted to do away with the caste factor, she said, it was not possible for the opposition to support it, therefore it stood together and defeated the government.

Smt. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra reiterated that the Opposition is ready to support the government if it brings back the 2023 Women Reservation Bill and implements it right away within the existing strength of the Parliament.

She said that the government needed this shock defeat to make it realise that excessive PR and media management does not work anymore. “People of the country are wise and understand who is up to what”, she said, adding, “it is not what it was 12 years ago and during the last three days, they are not able to comprehend that people of India have become aware.” “They can make as much ‘tamasha’ as they want, the people across the country have realised that they cannot be trusted anymore,” she asserted.

The senior Congress leader observed that there was a reason behind this sudden move by the government as there is international pressure as also the pressure from the people over rising prices and other issues.

Responding to a question about the government accusing the Opposition of being against the women’s reservation, she said that they have just been defeated in the Parliament for the first time in 12 years. She pointed out, the Opposition has made it repeatedly clear that it supports the women’s reservation and would like it to be implemented from now itself with the existing Lok Sabha strength.

On another question on Opposition unity, the Congress General Secretary said that the parties may be fighting each other in certain states, but when it comes to protecting the national interest, they are always together as was proved yesterday in the Parliament.

She said that the govt’s intention was the “complete overhaul of the Parliament” adding that those who have complete disregard for the Constitution cannot be trusted. Citing the example of Jammu and Kashmir and Assam, where the BJP manipulated delimitation, she asked, “When people do not trust them, how can you expect us to trust them?”