Monsoon Session formally not ended 10 days after adjournment amid delimitation bill buzz

Ten days after Parliament was adjourned indefinitely, the Monsoon Session has not been prorogued. The delay has intensified questions over a possible push by the Centre for a delimitation-linked women's reservation amendment.

In Short

• Prorogation usually follows adjournment within days, but no notification has appeared
• Government is likely to preserve flexibility to table delimination biill
• Proposed law could enable women's reservation before 2029 Lok Sabha polls

Ten days after both Houses of Parliament were adjourned sine die, the Monsoon session has still not been formally ended, fuelling speculation that the government may be keeping its options open to pass a key bill without calling a new session.

The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned sine die on August 13. Usually, a session is prorogued, or formally ended, within three to four days. However, no notification proroguing the Monsoon session had been issued till Sunday morning.

The Budget session had ended on April 18 and was prorogued on April 20. Under constitutional provisions, the president summons and prorogues Parliament on the recommendation of the government.

There has been strong speculation that the government could bring a bill to amend the women's reservation law so that it can be implemented before the 2029 parliamentary polls. An earlier attempt during the Budget session had failed as the government could not gather the numbers. Opposition parties, especially those from the south, were concerned that population-based delimitation would reduce their strength in the Lok Sabha.

To address these concerns, the government has worked on a formula to increase the number of Lok Sabha seats across states and Union territories by a uniform 50 per cent. There were also strong indications that the government could try to get the Constitution amendment bill passed after Independence Day.

The Congress on Sunday questioned why the session had not been prorogued even 10 days after it was adjourned sine die. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh asked whether Union Home Minister Amit Shah was still looking for his "super-tainted" two-thirds majority to pass the delimitation-linked Constitutional amendment bill in a special session.

Ramesh said the gap between the Lok Sabha being adjourned sine die and its prorogation is usually two to four days, though there have been several instances when both happened on the same day. "Ten days have gone by since this Lok Sabha was adjourned sine die but still there is no information on its prorogation," he said.

He added that while the gap for the Monsoon session in 2015 was 28 days and in 2021 it was 20 days, there were no "diabolical" moves afoot then.

Speculation over the government's next move on the delimitation-linked Women's Reservation Bill has continued after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay raised the issue at the Southern Zonal Council meeting in Mahabalipuram on August 21, which was chaired by Shah. "I urge the Union government to provide a clear legislative assurance that no state will suffer a reduction in its percentage of representation in Parliament on account of its success in population stabilisation," Vijay said.

His remarks pointed to a shift from the outright opposition to delimitation reflected in the resolution he had moved in the Tamil Nadu Assembly on August 12. However, Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, who also attended the Mahabalipuram meeting, said the central government should retain the existing number of Lok Sabha seats, 543, for the next 25 years.

- Ends