Women Reservation Bill passage teasing illusion, another election 'jumla' says P Chidambaram

New Delhi : Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Friday said the Women's Reservation Bill passed by Parliament was a "teasing illusion" and that it will not be implemented until 2029 or may be for long thereafter and was an election "jumla".

In a post on X, Chidambaram, a former Union minister said, "The Women's Reservation Bill passed yesterday is a teasing illusion. I fear that it will not be implemented until 2029 or may be for long thereafter."

He said that the pre-conditions of a census and a delimitation are wholly irrelevant and unnecessary. "Such conditions were not there in the Bills introduced by Mr Deve Gowda (1996), Mr Vajpayee (2002) and Dr Manmohan Singh (2010)," he said.

"The BJP supported and voted for the Bill in 2010. If a Census and a Delimitation were not necessary in 2010, why are they necessary in 2023?" Chidambaram said. "The sole mischievous purpose of these pre-conditions is to indefinitely delay the implementation of Women's reservation in Parliament and state legislative assemblies. It is an election jumla," Chidambaram said.

His remarks came after the Rajya Sabha on Thursday also unanimously passed the Women's Reservation Bill after an 11-hour debate, a day after Lok Sabha passed the Bill on Wednesday. Now 33 per cent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and in the state Assemblies will become a law and will be implemented after census and delimitation.

The motion was adopted in the Upper House with 215 MPs voting in favour and none against and without any abstention. Earlier, all Rajya Sabha MPs across party lines verbally supported the Bill despite some opposition members terming it an election gimmick. This Bill became the first Bill to be passed in the New Parliament Building during the five day Special Session.