The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill, 2023 (Women’s Reservation Bill) which reserves one-third of the seats in parliament and State legislative assemblies for women.
Members of the Lok Sabha cast their votes for the passage of the bill using slips.
454 Members of Parliament (MPs) voted in favour of the bill while 2 voted against it.
The Bill was introduced by Union Minister of State for Law & Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal on Tuesday amid opposition from MPs as they had not seen a copy.
After the government maintained that the Bill was ‘uploaded in the supplementary list of business’, the Bill was introduced by voice-vote.
The Bill seeks to reserve one-third of all seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the State legislative assemblies.
The seats already reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) will also come within the purview of the women’s reservation.
A legislation on similar lines was sought to be introduced back in 2008. While that Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha in 2010, it failed to see the light of day.
Notably, the Bill states that the reservation will come into effect once an exercise of delimitation is undertaken in the first census after the commencement of the Act.