Women Quota : A Self goal by Modi or a job well done to win Bengal elections :::: Congress may be ultimate loser .. it has earlier lost support of Brahmins, Muslims, OBC and Dalits and now if WOMEN also go away .....

A Self goal !! 

Or Opposition Lawmakers 'betrayed women' ?

It was a totally unwarranted situation. All eyes were on West Bengal elections and a bit of it for Tamil Nadu - where in any case the Lotus party is not the principal challenger to DMK. 

Then why invite this embarrassment with a half-baked move on Women Quota and Delimitation draft legislation? Or it was a job 'done well' to win West Bengal elections ? 

Turn the table.  Despite an impressive increase in turnout of women voters in recent polls across India, women keen to join electoral politics face deep-rooted structural constraints.  

"The joy of apparent victory born out of arrogance is, in reality, is a hidden great defeat" - Amit Shah mocking Opposition

Between 1996 and 2023; six attempts to pass the Women bill were stalled or decades in the decades since it was first introduced. 

In 2026, right from the moment the initiative or a special Parliament session was convened; the impression was the PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah must have done some homework. Secondly, it was almost taken that "poorer but more populous northern states" - somehow considered the BJP’s political heartland – stand to gain the most seats after the Delimitation.

The debate is not over. Some of it will be answered in the mandate on April 23 and 29 in West Bengal and also in Tamil Nadu where the polling is slated for April 29th.  

Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress has mastered the politics of direct benefit transfer through schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar. The result is a deeply entrenched support base among women voters for TMC. In the 2021 Assembly elections, Mamata won 213 out of 294 seats with a vote share of 48%, while the BJP secured 77 seats with 39%. The 9% vote share gap tells only part of the story. 

Among women voters, the gap was far wider. Surveys indicated that nearly 50% of women voters backed TMC, giving it a 13% advantage over the BJP.

The BJP strategists led by Amit Shah and guided by PM Modi must have presumed TMC will be 'trapped' by women empowerment card and now that they have voted against the same; perhaps an overwhelming section of women voters would betray Mamata. 

But this is more in theory and also hypothesis. The real concern for Mamata's women voters and also their families in not women empowerment. They would be more keen about the cash doles. Hence, the BJP's optimism may be over stated.  

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The BJP has highlighted incidents like Sandeshkhali focusing on security, dignity, and empowerment. But it did not make any difference in 2024 Lok Sabha polls.  

Other Opposition MPs questioned why women’s representation had been linked to a much larger political exercise, the Delimitation. LoP Rahul Gandhi comparatively made a better speech than his previous performances and said: 

“The first truth is that this is not a women’s bill. This has nothing to do with the empowerment of women. This is an attempt to change the electoral map of India.”  

It's true Delimitation is clearly a divisive issue. Even Shashi Tharoor, who often finds ways to support the Modi government at critical junctures, along with others suggested that "prosperous southern states" Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which have reduced population growth, should not be penalised.

The last time that India’s electoral map was redrawn was in 1971.

MPs from DMK arrived in parliament on Friday dressed in black.

Earlier, Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, M K Stalin called the government move a “punishment” for southern states and burned a copy.   

While the government has to negotiate with reality and a rare setback; the Opposition has won an opening against Modi. But for them too the road will be slippery. If BJP can really push the line that the Congress and other opposition parties yet again sabotaged the historic occasion; the impact could be disastrous especially for Congress as it has already lost its previous vote banks - the upper caste Hindus to BJP, the OBC to Yadavs (SP and RJD), 

-- Dalits to Mayawati and 

Muslims to AIUDF, SP and RJD. 

If women too go away; a near annihilation (complete destruction) stage now could be awaiting the grand old party.

Amit Shah has already tweeted :  

"How can anyone celebrate victory after deceiving half the country's population..."

"The Congress and its allies have done this not for the first time, but repeatedly. Their mindset is neither in the interest of women nor of the country.

"I want to tell them that this insult to Nari Shakti will not stop here; it will travel far and wide. The opposition will have to face the 'wrath of women' not only in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, but at every level, in every election, and at every place".

ends