Union Cabinet Passes Women's Reservation Bill

The Women's Reservation Bill was passed on Monday during the cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the special session of Parliament that took place in the old building of the Parliament.

Sources were quoted saying to India Today that the Union Cabinet passed the 'Women's Reservation Bill' with 33 per cent quota for women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies during the Cabinet meeting chaired by PM Modi.

However, an official announcement in connection with the bill is yet to come as the government could not address the press briefing after the Cabinet meeting.

The Union Cabinet meeting was called at 6:30 pm, after the first sitting of the special Parliament session.

Several political leaders demanded for the bill to get passed that guarantees a 33 per cent quota for women in Lok Sabha and state assemblies.

What is Women's Reservation Bill

The Women's Reservation Bill seeks to reserve 33 percent of seats in the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies for women. As per the bill, one-third of the total number of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will be reserved for women from those groups. The reserved seats may be allotted to different constituencies in the state or union territory.

The bill says that the reservation of seats for women shall cease to exist 15 years after the commencement of the amendment act.

Earlier, the bill was known as the Constitution Bill (One Hundred and Eighth Amendment), 2008. The bill that was first introduced during Manmohan Singh-government was passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2010. However, it was not introduced in the Lok Sabha.

Although there has been no official announcement about the bill, Union Minister Prahlad Singh Patel congratulated PM Modi for approving the bill on platform X, formerly Twitter. "Only the Modi government had the moral courage to fulfil the demand for women's reservation. Which was proved by the approval of the cabinet. Congratulations PM Narendra Modi and congratulations to the PM Modi government."

The cabinet meeting was chaired by PM Modi, and was attended by Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Piyush Goyal, Pralhad Joshi, S Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman, Dharmendra Pradhan, Nitin Gadkari and Arjun Ram Meghwal, among others.