Nari Shakti Vandan: The reservation law

The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam reached a milestone that earlier proposals had not: presidential assent. On 28 September 2023, the Constitution’s 106th Amendment became law, establishing a framework for reserving legislative seats for women. It did not immediately change who occupied those seats. [1]

The gap it addressed was substantial. PRS Legislative Research’s September 2023 analysis put women at about 15% of the 17th Lok Sabha and an average of 9% of state assembly membership. Those were the figures at the time of the legislation, rather than a count of today’s legislatures. [2]

A long legislative route

Constitutional reservation for women in local government already existed. Attempts to extend it to Parliament and state assemblies had been made in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2008. The last of those proposals passed the Rajya Sabha but lapsed when the 15th Lok Sabha was dissolved. The 2023 enactment under the Modi government therefore completed a legislative step pursued across governments and parliamentary committees. [2]

The Act provides for roughly one-third of directly elected seats in the Lok Sabha, state assemblies and Delhi’s assembly to be reserved for women. It includes reservation within the existing Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe quotas. Its scope does not extend to the Rajya Sabha or state legislative councils. [1]

But Article 334A attaches a sequence to implementation: publication of the relevant figures from the first census after the Act’s commencement, followed by delimitation for this purpose. Delimitation determines constituency boundaries and the allocation of seats. Enactment alone did not complete that sequence. [1]

What changed in April 2026

A Gazette notification appointed 16 April 2026 as the date on which the Act’s provisions came into force. That was commencement of the law, not an announcement that one-third of sitting legislators had been replaced or that reserved constituencies were ready for elections. The implementation conditions remained in the constitutional text. [3]

The government separately proposed legislation that month to change the route to implementation. PRS’s analysis explained that the package would permit delimitation using the 2011 census and enlarge the Lok Sabha. It also identified a consequential dispute: using a different population base could alter states’ relative shares of seats, even if the House grew. The proposed changes concerned the distribution of political power as well as women’s representation. [4]

The Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs’ session report records that the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill failed to obtain the required majority on its motion for consideration. The associated delimitation and Union Territories Bills were not taken further. That failure did not repeal the 2023 Act. [5]

An August 2026 government factsheet still described the quota as taking effect after post-census delimitation. Meanwhile, the Home Ministry had scheduled the main population-enumeration exercise for February 2027, with an earlier timetable for specified snow-bound areas. The law had entered the Constitution and formally commenced; the census, constituency exercise and elections under reserved seats remained the steps through which women would occupy the promised places. [6] [7]