India, April 27 -- The failed delimitation exercise under the guise of Women's Reservation in the April 16-18, 2026, special session of Parliament is being projected by the ruling regime as a lost opportunity for women's empowerment. The opposition, in turn, is being cast as anti-women. Both claims collapse under scrutiny.

What was presented as a progressive reform was, in effect, a politically loaded restructuring of electoral power-one that made the bill's defeat both predictable and necessary in the interests of democracy and women's representation.

Women's reservation itself was never the issue. The Constitution (106th Amendment) Bill had already been passed in 2023 with broad political support. What remained was implementation.

I...