‘Grave betrayal against 700 million women’: BJP trains guns at opposition after 131st Amendment bill fails

E-PaperSubscribeSubscribeEnjoy unlimited accessSubscribe Now! Get features like The BJP on Friday launched a sharp attack on the opposition after the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 failed to pass in the Lok Sabha, accusing rival parties of a “grave betrayal” of women and blocking a historic reform. “Insult to every woman”: BJP attacks opposition over 131st Amendment failure (File photo)The bill, aimed at implementing 33% reservation for women from the 2029 general elections, fell short of the required two-thirds majority, triggering a political slugfest between the ruling party and the INDIA bloc. The amendment secured 298 votes in favour and 230 against, missing the threshold needed for passage. Announcing the result, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said, “The Constitution (131st Amendment) Amendment Bill did not pass as it did not achieve a 2/3 majority during voting in the House.” The defeat, notably, halts the progress of the linked delimitation exercise, which had been a key flashpoint between the government and the opposition. Leading the charge, Union home minister Amit Shah accused the opposition of celebrating at the cost of women’s rights. “How can anyone celebrate victory after deceiving half the country's population—700 million women—and losing their trust?” he said on X, adding, “This celebration by the opposition is an insult to every woman who has been waiting for her rights for decades.” He further warned, “The women of the country are seeing who the obstacle in their path is… When you go to the elections, the mother power will demand an account, and then you won't find a way to escape.” Union Minister Pralhad Joshi said the vote had exposed the opposition, stating, “Today the entire country saw who is in favour of women's reservation and who is against women's reservation. The country lost a historic opportunity because of the Congress Party,” news agency ANI reported. He added, “People will teach the Congress party a lesson.” BJP MP Tejasvi Surya termed the outcome “a very sad day for the democracy of the country,” saying the Congress had “once again betrayed the women of the country,” ANI quoted him as saying. Echoing the line, Jagdambika Pal said, "Today the face of the opposition has been exposed... The Modi government is bringing women's reservation in 2029 instead of 2034, so what is the protest about? They never wanted to give a reservation to women. This is an insult to half the population of the country," he told ANI. BJP president Nitin Nabin also intensified the attack, saying the day “could have been written in golden letters” but for what he described as a “grave betrayal” by Congress and its allies. The opposition, however, defended its stand, with Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi framing the bill’s defeat as a safeguard against what he described as a flawed legislative move. “The amendment bill has fallen. They used an unconstitutional trick in the name of women to break the Constitution. India has seen it. INDIA has stopped it. Hail the Constitution,” he wrote on X. In separate post, Gandhi said, “This is not a Women's Reservation Bill - it has nothing to do with women. This bill is anti-OBC, This bill is anti-SC-ST, This bill is Anti National - against the South, North-East, North-West, and small states.” He added, “We will neither let anyone's rights be snatched away, nor let the country be divided.” Opposition parties had objected to linking the implementation of the quota to a future census and delimitation exercise, arguing it delayed actual benefits. The result marked a rare coordinated pushback by the INDIA bloc, which denied the government the numbers required for a constitutional amendment, marking the first time in 12 years a Modi government constitutional amendment failed. Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy called it “a Red-letter Day,” crediting Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge for uniting opposition parties to avert what he termed a “national disaster.”