Rajya Sabha passes Women’s Reservation Bill with 215 votes
Rajya Sabha on Thursday passed the Women’s Reservation Bill, Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023 after it was cleared by the Lok Sabha a day ago.
The women's reservation bill was passed with 215 ayes, 0 noes.
Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal tabled the historic bill in the upper house and called it “a bill towards women empowerment.”
BJP president JP Nadda and Congress party president Mallikarjun Kharge engaged in a heated argument in Rajya Sabha over the implementation of the bill.
The reservation bill was passed in Lok Sabha on Wednesday with an overwhelming majority, 27 years after it was first presented in the parliament.
The opposition parties extended support for the bill but also demanded the inclusion of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and SC/ST communities under it.
MPs manually voted on the bill and after the division of the votes, the bill received 454 votes in its favour and two against it.
The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023, seeks to provide a 33% reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and assemblies.
However, the quota can come into force only by 2029 since it has to be implemented after the delimitation of constituencies that will be conducted only after the next census, which is likely to be held after the 2024 general elections.
Women account for almost half of India's 950 million registered voters but make for only 15% of parliament and around 10% of state legislatures, pushing the world's largest democracy to the bottom of the global list on gender parity in legislatures.
The bill was officially introduced in the Lok Sabha on September 12, 1996 by the UPA government.
Timeline of the Bill:
1996: Bill introduced in Lok Sabha by UPA government; failed to get approval in
