Additional information about gender quotas

The percentage of women is calculated from the current number of seats occupied in the parliament. The House of the People has 545 statutory seats. The Council of States has 245 statutory seats. 

India is a federation with local, state and federal levels of governance. The Federal Constitution of India provides the system of minimum 33 per cent reserved seats for women in directly-elected local councils of various types, including villages, blocks and districts. The Constitution provides the right of every state to determine the amount of reserved seats in each local council above the required minimum of 33 per cent. Various states reserve different percentages of seats at the panchayat and municipal levels, while several have provided for up to 50 per cent reserved seats for women at both levels. The selection of wards (the lowest-level units which elect village panchayats or municipal councils) to be reserved for women in each election is performed randomly, through lots, and is conducted at the level of the state government which is responsible for elections of local self-governance bodies in the federal system. Lots are drawn in advance of the election date to determine the list of wards. Wards reserved for women rotate at every election. While this ensures that the effect of the reservation is spread broadly across different wards, the system has been criticized for its negative effect on continuity for women representatives (Rai 2005: 176).

Since the early 1990s the Women’s Reservation Bill has been discussed repeatedly with various reformulations, but has not been adopted by parliament’s lower house (the Lok Sabha or ‘House of the People’). Two initial bills, tabled in 1996 and 1998, respectively, aimed at reforming the Constitution to introduce the system of reserved seats for the parliament but expired at the end of the respective parliaments. In 1999 a third bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha but was also unsuccessful.

Another attempt was made by tabling the Constitution Bill of 2008 with the purpose of reserving at least one-third of the total number of seats in the Lok Sabha and in the state legislative assemblies for women, and reserving not less than one-third of seats for women within the seats reserved for scheduled castes and tribes. Under this bill, widely known as the Women’s Reservation Bill, reserved seats may be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in the state or union territory, as determined by law. The reservation of seats for women shall cease to exist or expire after 15 years of the commencement of the proposed Amendment Act. The bill was approved by the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) on 9 March 2010. However, in order for it to enter into force, it must also be approved by a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha.

The Women’s Reservation Bill enacted by Parliament on September 28th, 2023, proposes to reserve 33 per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies for women. India already reserves one-third of seats for women in Panchayati Raj Institutions at the village level and one-third of the offices of the chairperson at all levels of the Panchayati Raj Institutions, and in urban local bodies, respectively. However, the quota can be implemented only after the first delimitation or redrawing of constituencies after the bill becomes law. Constituencies will be redrawn only after the next Census, which is likely in 2027. (NDTV 2023)