A special session of Parliament was held for three days, starting April 16th. Its purpose was to reserve 33% of seats for women in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. To this end, the government introduced the Nari Shakti Vandan (Regional Women’s Rights) Amendment Act in Parliament on April 16th. During the debate on this Act, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being a magician and deceptively claiming that he had included delimitation in the Nari Shakti Vandan (Regional Women’s Rights) Amendment Act. Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, claiming to have caught the magic of Narendra Modi this time, accused him of using the delimitation magic to conceal the people’s magic and to secretly increase the number of parliamentary seats in North Indian states, where he has a stronger influence, compared to South Indian states, giving him a significant advantage during the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. Using this magic, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi called for the inclusion of OBCs alongside SCs and STs in the Lok Sabha, but Akhilesh Yadav, the national president of the opposition Samajwadi Party, raised the issue of including Muslims in the bill.
The Nari Shakti Vandan Amendment Act, introduced in the Lok Sabha, was a constitutional amendment, requiring a two-thirds majority in the House to pass it. In this context, the bill required the support of at least 362 MPs out of the 543 members of the Lok Sabha. The NDA coalition, including the BJP and all its constituent parties, has 293 elected MPs. Consequently, it fell short by at least 49 MPs. Consequently, it had two options: one was to somehow convince at least 49 MPs from the opposition political parties to vote in favor of the proposed Nari Shakti Vandan (Regulation of Women and Child Development) Amendment Act, or the other was to persuade more than 103 MPs to abstain from the Lok Sabha on voting day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was maneuvering to achieve either or both of these objectives and ensure the passage of the Nari Shakti Vandan (Regulation of Women and Child Development) Amendment Act in the Lok Sabha. On one hand, while Home Minister Amit Shah and several other ministers from the NDA camp were attempting to placate the Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, and other opposition political party leaders in the Lok Sabha by answering questions raised by them, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was simultaneously urging them to pass the Nari Shakti Vandan Amendment Act, stating that he was willing to give him all the credit for its passage. He even offered to publish advertisements to this effect from the public treasury. However, this time, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, and other opposition political party leaders in the Lok Sabha, stating that they would not allow Prime Minister Narendra Modi to manipulate them as they had done in the past, voted against the Nari Shakti Vandan Amendment Act. In the vote, the new Nari Shakti Vandan Amendment Act received 298 votes in favor, falling short of the two-thirds majority of 352 required for its passage. Thus, the Nari Shakti Bandhan Amendment Act, introduced by the government in the Lok Sabha, failed to be passed. Following this, opposition political party leaders began claiming that they had now discovered the secret of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s manipulation and would not allow his tricks to continue.
But Narendra Modi is a master of such manipulation. He constantly creates new narratives and leverages them to his and his coalition partners’ victories. While opposition leaders are constantly holding press conferences to call for a halt to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s manipulation, addressing technical issues like delimitation and addressing OBCs and Muslims, they are failing to properly explain this. They are more focused on exposing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s manipulation using technical terms like delimitation, and they talk about the decline in parliamentary seats in southern states, which is clearly increasing. In such a situation, the general public isn’t particularly interested in these technical matters. While such technicalities and numerical strength may defeat bills like the Women’s Empowerment (Amendment) Act in the Lok Sabha, such discussions do little to resonate with the public and win their trust.
Meanwhile, Narendra Modi, on the other hand, began displaying his new magic as soon as the Nari Shakti Vandan (Amendment) Act was defeated in the Lok Sabha. In his speeches aimed at swaying women in both the Tamil Nadu elections and the current West Bengal Assembly elections, he blamed the opposition coalitions for preventing innocent women from entering Parliament,claiming it as an act of foeticide warning them that women would never forgive them for this. Furthermore, that very night, he broadcast a message to the nation. Given his expertise in media management, he made a significant effort to win over women. His magic was clearly evident here as well. He promised to ensure women receive 33% reservation in Parliament in the 2029 elections, but he concealed it just as a magician conceals many things he says to gather crowds, and doesn’t even mention it later. In such a situation, even though his magic was exposed in the Lok Sabha this time, as the opposition claimed, he has once again come up with a new magic trick to win over women. He is creating new narratives to enchant women and reap their benefits.