Kolkata: Returning fire, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said it was “deeply unfortunate” that PM Narendra Modi chose to “mislead” the nation over the women’s quota bill, and accused the Centre
of using it as a cover for delimitation.
“It is deeply unfortunate that the PM chose to mislead the nation rather than address it honestly,” she said on X.
She said her party has consistently backed greater political representation for women. “TMC has always championed higher political representation for women. We have the highest proportion of female elected representatives in Parliament and the state legislature.”
She added 37.9% of TMC’s Lok Sabha MPs are women and that it nominated 46% women to Rajya Sabha.
Rejecting the charge of opposing women’s reservation, she said: “What we are fundamentally opposed to is the delimitation exercise that the Modi government was plotting to push through by using women as a shield for its vested political agenda.”
Banerjee further alleged that the move amounted to “the altering of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Constitution, the division of this nation and the usurpation of power through gerrymandering, by redrawing political contours to hand greater representation to BJP-ruled states at the expense of others”.
Calling it an “assault on federal democracy”, she said, “We will not watch it happen in silence.” Lashing out at Modi, Banerjee wrote: “The next time you address the nation, have the courage to do so from the Floor of Parliament, where you are subject to scrutiny, challenge and accountability.”
“What you did yesterday was cowardly, hypocritical and fork-tongued. You can feel power slipping through your fingers. And you are prepared to go to any extent to hold on for just a little while longer,” she said.
On April 16, the Centre introduced three Bills in the Lok Sabha — The Constitution (One Hundred and Thirty-First Amendment) Bill, 2026; The Delimitation Bill, 2026; and The Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026.
The government said the ‘Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam’, or the Women’s Reservation Act, provides for implementation of quota after delimitation based on a post-2026 Census.
“If this government was genuinely serious about this noble cause, why did it wait nearly three years after the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill on September 28, 2023?” Banerjee said.
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“Why rush it through when several states are in election? And why couple it with Delimitation?” she asked, asserting that the TMC has backed women’s rights for decades. “We will not be lectured on a subject that the ruling dispensation neither understands nor respects,” Banerjee said.
