Approval was given to introduce three important constitutional amendment bills related to women’s reservation and delimitation in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. The most important Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 was approved by the House after division.
In the voting conducted on the demand of the opposition, 251 MPs voted in favor of introducing the bill, while 185 MPs voted against it. While announcing the results, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said that these figures are subject to change.
NDA has a total of 293 MPs in the Lok Sabha, but only 251 votes were cast in favor of introducing the bill. This means that some MPs were either absent or were not in the House during voting. The 185 votes received by the opposition clearly indicated that their opposition to all three bills is very strong. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal stood in the House and formally introduced this bill. Along with this, the Delimitation Bill, 2026 and the Union Territory Law (Amendment) Bill, 2026 were also placed on the table of the House.
The main objective of these three bills is to implement one-third reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies and to create new delimitation of seats. Generally, proposals are passed in the House by voice vote, but when there is a dispute, the process of ‘division’ is adopted. The opposition had demanded the same process while presenting the bill related to women’s reservation. Automatic vote recorder system was used during vote division. MPs registered their votes by pressing ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘absent’ buttons.
A total of 333 MPs participated in the process and no member abstained from voting. Lok Sabha Secretary General Utpal Singh gave complete information about the voting process to the House. He told that if any MP wants to change his vote, he can do so through vote slip. The vote will be valid only if the member presses the button at the right time after the first bell and before the second bell. MPs can also check their votes on the individual result board.
This division of votes is particularly important because a Constitution Amendment Bill requires a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha to ultimately pass. Right now only the approval to introduce the bill has been received. The real test of numerical strength will be during further discussion and final voting.