As the government reels from a historic legislative failure, senior BJP leaders Ravi Shankar Prasad and Smriti Irani have systematically attacked the INDIA bloc, accusing them of using complex delimitation arguments as an excuse to permanently stall women's empowerment.
Brajesh Mishra
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has officially launched a massive political counter-offensive following its stunning legislative defeat in Parliament last night.
On Saturday afternoon, April 18, 2026, senior BJP leader and former Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad fiercely rejected the Congress party's criticism regarding the collapse of the 131st Amendment Bill. Addressing a joint press conference with Smriti Irani at the BJP Headquarters in New Delhi, Prasad systematically dismantled the opposition's narrative, accusing the INDIA bloc of orchestrating a "calculated betrayal" of Indian women under the guise of protecting federalism.
Prasad fundamentally rejected the Congress party's demand that the 33% women's quota should be implemented immediately within the existing 543 Lok Sabha seats. He argued that attempting to enforce the quota without conducting a fresh census and executing a proper constitutional delimitation is "legally and procedurally flawed."
The former Law Minister specifically took aim at the top Congress leadership. Responding to recent claims by Priyanka Gandhi that the BJP was merely "using" women as political pawns, Prasad launched a blistering counter-attack.
"Congress party, especially Rahul Gandhi, oppose everything," Prasad stated to the press. "Today, when the Modi government is committed to women's empowerment, it is evident that they are against it... The women of the country will not forgive them."
Prasad also directly addressed the massive regional divide that ultimately caused the bill's collapse. Southern states and the INDIA bloc voted en masse against the amendment because it tied women's reservation to a delimitation exercise that would inevitably favor heavily populated Northern states.
Mounting the BJP's defense, Prasad argued that the people of the South have been actively "misled" by the opposition's relentless fearmongering. He claimed that carving a 33% reservation out of the existing 543 seats without expanding the Parliament would severely disrupt the current representation matrix, effectively reducing general availability and causing total chaos in Southern constituencies anyway.
Both Prasad and Irani maintained a unified front, insisting that the opposition is using the complex issue of delimitation merely as a convenient excuse to permanently stall women's empowerment. Irani was quick to point out that previous Congress-led governments also allowed the Women's Reservation Bill to lapse back in 2010 when they had the chance to cement it into law.
While the press conference addressed constitutional mechanics, the true "Missed Angle" here is the speed and legal precision with which the BJP is attempting to strip away the opposition's legislative nuance.
Currently, the Congress and regional leaders are celebrating the bill's defeat as a complex, sophisticated victory for the Constitution and Southern democratic weight. By deploying heavyweights like Ravi Shankar Prasad, the BJP is executing a calculated "narrative flip."
The ruling party is attempting to entirely erase the word "delimitation" from the public consciousness. Instead, they are boiling the weekend's historic, multi-layered parliamentary clash down to a simple, highly emotional binary for voters: Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to give women power, and the Congress voted 'No'.
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