The Women Reservation Bill, 2023 or the 'Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam' was cleared in the Lok Sabha on September 20 and was unanimously passed in the Rajya Sabha on September 21, 2023. The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023 was tabled in the Lok Sabha after it was introduced by Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal.

The Bill seeks to reserve 33% of all seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies. The reservation will not apply to the Rajya Sabha. However, the reservation will only be effective after the Census and delimitation exercise is conducted. While the Opposition leaders welcomed the move to bring in the legislation, some raised concerns stating that delays in carrying out census and delimitation will prevent the implementation of laws like women's reservation in parliament and state assemblies.

The Indian National Congress MP Jairam Ramesh in a post on X said that the "Bill gets the headlines today with a very vague promise of its implementation date." 

Aam Aadmi Party's MP Sanjay Singh called the Bill as 'fool the woman bill'. He stated that there was no clarification on when the Bill will be passed, and that all of this was just another political gimmick by Prime Minister Modi, the Times of India reported. 

Further, Shiv Sena's Priyanka Chaturvedi said that the Bill will "open the door for the women but will ask them to queue up to wait till 2029, to enter & fill the seats they have rightly deserved since we became a republic!"

What does the Bill say about its commencement, census and delimitation? 

The implementation of the Bill is not immediate and will neither happen before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Bill states that the provisions of the law shall come into effect only after an exercise of delimitation is undertaken after the relevant figures of first census is carried out. Delimitation and census go hand in hand. The 2021 census was postponed for the first time since its inception in 1881. 

When asked about the reasons for the continuing delay in conducting the 2021 Census, the union government on July 26, 2023, told the Rajya Sabha that "The intent of the Government for conducting Census 2021 was notified in Gazette of India on 28th March, 2019. The Government decided to conduct Census 2021 under the Census Act, 1948 in two phases, viz., (i) House listing & Housing Census during April-September, 2020 and (ii) Population Enumeration during 9th to 28th February, 2021. Due to outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the Census 2021 and the related field activities have been postponed."

What is delimitation? 

Delimitation is the process through which a territory is divided into constituencies wherein a Delimitation Commission or a Boundary Commission fixes limits or boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country on basis of population for electoral purposes. We have Parliamentary constituencies, assembly constituencies, municipalities and panchayats. The boundaries of each is divided through the process of delimitation, explained Maansi Verma, founder of Maadhyam, a civic engagement initiative. "As and when a census happens and there are indications of increase in population, changes in density due to movement of people etc., there arises a need to readjust boundaries so that as far as possible, each constituency has roughly the same population," she explained. 

Why is it needed?

Delimitation is necessary because it ensures that each elected representative roughly represents the same number of people ensuring fairness in representation. This means that each state should receive seats in proportion to its population and allocate those seats to constituencies of roughly equal size. In our Constitution, seats have to be reserved for members from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes communities as well. That is also decided on the basis of proportion of SC, ST population in a particular area. Drawing of boundaries of reserved constituencies is also done through delimitation. 

The total number of Lok Sabha seats is expected to increase from 543 to 753 (according to projected population figures). According to the 2019 research paper titled, India’s Emerging Crisis of Representation, for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar would gain as many as 21 seats in total in the delimitation process whereas Tamil Nadu and Kerala will lose as many as 16. This is mainly because of the major differences in population growth of the northern and southern states of the country. The paper says, "States with slow population growth, such as the southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, argue that they should not be punished for curbing population growth more effectively than states with ballooning populations, such as the northern states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh."

Article 82 of the Constitution says that next readjustment of boundaries can only happen after 2026 and the total number of seats in Lok Sabha from different states is fixed till then. Since delimitation is dependent on census, it can only happen once census takes place after 2026.

Since the Independence of India, the census has been carried out seven times (1951-2011). However, the delimitation exercise has been conducted on four times -- in 1952 under the Delimitation Commission Act, 1952, in 1963 under Delimitation Commission Act, 1962, in 1973 under Delimitation Act, 1972 and in 2002 under Delimitation Act, 2002, as per the Election Commission of India.

"Census is a decadal exercise and the last census was due in 2021, which couldn't be carried out due to COVID-19. It isn't clear when the next census will be carried out now. It is possible that the government undertakes a census in 2027 itself and on the basis of that, delimitation is carried out. If the government continues the decadal pattern of census, then it will be undertaken in 2031 and delimitation can happen only after that," Verma concluded.