Explainer: What's delimitation exercise and why it'd delay implementation of women's reservation?
reservation for women may not become effective before the 2029 Lok Sabha election. Why? The Women's Reservation Bill says so… Article 334A of the Women's Reservation Bill says “.…provisions of the Constitution relating to the reservation of seats for women in the House of the People, the Legislative Assembly of a State and the Legislative Assembly of the National Capital Territory of Delhi shall come into effect after an exercise of delimitation is undertaken for this purpose after the relevant figures for the first census taken after commencement of the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Amendment) Act, 2023 have been published…." Immediate implementation of women's reservation bill is illegal.
Here's why The effectiveness of the Women's Reservation Bill is dependent on two processes – the delimitation exercise and the Census. Delimitation literally means the act or process of fixing limits or boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
In simple words, delimitation redraws the boundaries of Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies resulting in an increase in the number of constituencies according to the latest population. The delimitation exercise would be carried out on the basis of the Census.
The Bill comes into effect when both these processes are carried out. This is done for every state so that a balance is achieved between the number of constituencies and the population; to provide equal representation to a segment of the population; to designate a number of seats for the reserved categories – now women.
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