Senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leader Brinda Karat writes, ”In September 2023, to blunt mounting criticism of its failure to legislate on women’s reservation, the government hastily pushed through the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam (NSVA) in a so-called “special session”, just months before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. 

This legislation was markedly different from the Bill which had been adopted by the Rajya Sabha in 2010. If that Bill, which had gone through several rounds of parliamentary scrutiny, had been presented by the government, as it should have been, women’s reservation could have been implemented from the 2024 elections itself.”

Women’s reservation and delimitation should be delinked

Women’s reservation is a stand-alone step which requires a stand-alone law