A united Opposition on Friday defeated the government’s move to amend the Constitution for raising the number of seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies and reserving one-third of these for women in time for the 2029 elections.Moments after Home Minister Amit Shah accused the Congress and its allies of stalling the women’s reservation agenda for decades, and dared them to “face the wrath of women at the hustings”, the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, fell in the Lower House, in the first legislative setback to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government in 12 years. The PM was in the House when the Bill failed.While 298 MPs voted for the draft law that tied women’s reservation to delimitation of constituencies, 230 voted against it. Being a Constitution amendment Bill, the agenda required a two-thirds majority of the 528 MPs present and voting, which meant 352 votes. The government fell short of 54 even as the ruling and opposition blocs stayed firm on their pre-declared stances on the Bill.With the Constitution amendment agenda defeated, the government did not move the remaining two Bills — the Delimitation Commission Bill, 2026, and another to amend the structures of UTs with assemblies.Related news: In Lok Sabha loss, BJP eyes future wins; set to start campaign showing Opposition ‘anti-women’Attempt to redraw electoral map: Rahul Gandhi tears into CentreCongress’ outreach, Stalin’s concerns yield united Opposition rare win in ParliamentJust before the Bill fell — a prospect BJP strategists led by PM Modi were aware of — Shah attacked the Congress-led INDIA bloc for deploying “ifs and buts” to oppose women’s reservation. “Be ready to face the wrath of women,” Shah said in the House, rejecting as “false narratives” the three concerns the Opposition raised around the Bill.These were: the Bill has been brought to delay the caste census; the Bill creates a North-South divide and the Bill “deprives” OBC and Muslim reservation.Shah said religion-based reservation was barred by the Constitution and the caste census was underway.“The ongoing Census is underway along with caste enumeration, which will be published with the Census data and then debated by this House. The BJP will go by the consensus of the House on the matter,” he said, dismissing the Opposition’s “caste census delay” remarks.The Home Minister reiterated that after the proposed delimitation, southern states would have 195 MPs instead of 129 they have today, adding that the purpose of the delimitation was to give true representation to the states and honour the constitutional mandate of “one person, one vote, one value”.He warned the DMK and the Congress of peddling the South-North divide and said, “Your hair will turn grey but you will never come to power by spreading divisive agenda.”Shah said 120 Lok Sabha seats today had more than 20 lakh voters because the number of seats in the House had been frozen at 543 on the basis of the 1971 Census.“For 50 years — from 1976 to 2026 — India did not get representation as per the population,” he said, attacking the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for delaying delimitation for political gains.Addressing the DMK, he said, “If we were to reserve 33 per cent seats for women on today’s Lok Sabha strength, 13 of Tamil Nadu’s 39 seats would go to women and only 26 would be open. The 50 per cent rise in the Lok Sabha seats for every state that we are proposing will mean 59 seats for Tamil Nadu with 20 reserved for women and 39 open. What is better?”Shah recalled the late PM Indira Gandhi’s move of stalling Kaka Kalelkar-led OBC Commission recommendations and Rajiv Gandhi’s opposition to the Mandal Commission to say that the Congress had started sympathising with OBCs only because of electoral defeats.The Home Minister said the Congress-led INDIA bloc had “stalled women’s reservation for the fifth time”.In fact, it was the first time ever that the Congress voted against a proposal to advance women’s reservation, with Shah saying that the party was opposed to everything PM Modi did.He cited the following agenda in this list — Abrogation of Article 370, Ram Mandir, CAA, triple talaq criminalisation; GST, surgical strikes, air strikes and Op Sindoor.Speaking to reporters later, Shah wondered how the Opposition could celebrate the fall of a Bill meant for women.“The Congress, the TMC, the DMK and the Samajwadi Party did not allow the passage of the essential Constitution amendment Bill for the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam. Rejecting the Bill that would grant 33 per cent reservation to women, celebrating it, and raising victory cries over it is truly reprehensible and beyond imagination. Now, the women of the country will not get the 33 per cent reservation in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, which was their right. 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,” Shah said.