Top leaders of the opposition parties met at Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge's residence in New Delhi on Wednesday, to discuss strategy on the women’s reservation law and a proposed delimitation amendment, ahead of a special three-day sitting of the Parliament.
Leaders of the Congress, DMK, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party, RJD, CPI and CPI-M were present at the meeting.
Besides Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, the other leaders at the meeting included DMK's T R Baalu, RJD's Tejashwi Yadav, Trinamool's Sagarika Ghosh, Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders Sanjay Raut and Arvind Sawant, and NCP-SCP's Spriya Sule, with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav joining virtually.
CPI leader Annie Raja, CPI-M's Nilotpal Basu, AAP leader Sanjay Singh, Independent MP Kapil Sibal, IUML's E T Mohammed Bashir and RSP's N K Premchandran also attended the meeting, other than Congress general secretaries K C Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh.
Kharge had earlier in the day convened a meeting of Congress's parliamentary strategy group, where the leaders discussed both issues in detail after the government on Tuesday circulated bills related to the women’s quota law and delimitation among MPs.
Notably, the Congress has alleged that when the intent behind a bill is "mischievous" and its content "devious", the extent of damage to parliamentary democracy is enormous.
The Budget session of Parliament has been extended, and a special three-day sitting of the House has been convened from April 16 to 18, during which amendments to the 'Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam', more commonly known as the Women's Reservation Act, will be brought for its implementation in 2029.
The number of Lok Sabha seats will be increased to up to 850 from the current 543 to "operationalise" the women's reservation law before the 2029 parliamentary polls, following a delimitation exercise to be carried out based on the last published census.
According to the draft Constitution amendment bill, which will be introduced in the upcoming special sitting of Parliament, seats would also be increased in the state and Union Territory assemblies to accommodate 33 per cent reservation for women.
(With inputs from PTI)