India fails to pass bill on women seats

An Indian government bill to expand assemblies that would have brought forward plans to reserve a third of the seats for women did not get enough votes to get through parliament on Friday, in a rare defeat for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Opposition groups said while they were in favour of quotas for women legislators, the linking of the plan to a mass redrawing of constituency boundaries was a government bid to manipulate the system and get more votes.

"The amendment bill has fallen. They used an unconstitutional trick in the name of women to break the Constitution," Opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi said in a post on X, minutes after the bill failed to get through.

The government dismissed that accusation and said it would continue to campaign for women's quotas. "The women of this country will not forgive you," Interior Minister Amit Shah said in parliament, before the bill was put to a vote.

The government had argued the constituency changes were needed to reflect shifts in the population since seats were last fixed after a 1971 census.