The demand for women’s reservation in legislatures has been a part of the political discourse for a few decades. Though the members of the Constituent Assembly deliberated on the need for a women’s quota, they may have felt there was no need for reservation and hoped that such a law would be unnecessary. They may have felt that society would allow women to find their rightful place in the natural course of things. But their hopes were belied. In 1996, when a women’s reservation bill was introduced in Parliament by the then PM HD Deve Gowda, his own allies including Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav staunchly opposed it and stalled it. It was re-introduced in 1997, but met the same fate. Multiple attempts by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments between 1998 and 2004 were curtailed by an unwilling Opposition which blocked the bill’s path.

In 2008, with the help of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the United Progressive Alliance-I mustered support to get the bill passed in the Rajya Sabha. However, the Congress failed to achieve a political consensus on the matter. Sonia Gandhi, former president of Congress, publicly accepted her failure in winning over the leaders of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Samajwadi Party (SP) but also her own partymen. Unfortunately, in 2012, the country also saw misogynistic statements from leaders such as the SP’s late Mulayam Singh Yadav.

After back-to-back setbacks, it took the political leadership of PM Modi to reintroduce the bill and provide women their rightful place in society. In contrast to the 2008 bill, the current bill presents three key aspects which reinforce the vision of the government. First, the new bill gives room for constitutional and political acceptance. It lays down that reservation will be in place after the delimitation exercise, which will be undertaken after the Census. In prescribing a model that will draw its basis from relevant facts and figures, the new bill, adhering to the constitutional prescription under Article 82 that mandates delimitation after the Census, gives scope for constitutional and political acceptance. If this course had not been adopted, the implementation would have inevitably hit a roadblock with a simple challenge in a Constitutional court.

Second, the new bill also addresses another important shortcoming of the UPA version in as much as avoiding rotation of reservation of seats after every election and provides for rotation after every delimitation exercise. The 2008 bill of the Congress prescribed the rotation of seats after every election leading to women being given token representation. It placed women at a disadvantage in terms of handicapping them from establishing their leadership and investing in their constituency. The new bill aims at nurturing strong women leaders, thereby strengthening the country’s political system as well as strong women-led development.

Third, in the last nine years of PM Modi, women have been socially, economically and politically empowered, leaving no room for proxy leadership. The policies of the government have catered to a comprehensive view of women’s development starting from the birth of a girl child to her education, nutrition, employment and social mobility. The economic and social backwardness of women has been turned around through reduction in female infanticide and foeticide rates, introduction of schemes like Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, POSHAN, Swacch Bharat Yojana, Mudra Yojana, Jan Dhan, Matru Vandana Yojana, Jal Jeevan Mission, PM Awas Yojana, abolition of triple talaq and much more. These comprehensive measures have laid the foundation for a “Viksit Bharat” (Developed India) of 2047, where women are not mere beneficiaries but are makers of the policies.

While the earlier half-hearted and ill-thought-out attempts to bring women’s reservation failed to achieve the desired results, PM Modi, through this practical and constitutionally implementable model, has set the tone for true representation of women in both letter and spirit. Politically speaking, what matters today is that the credit for scoring this goal goes to the PM. Everything else is noise. Those who are resorting to arguments such as a quota for Other Backwards Classes (OBC), immediate implementation of the quota, etc. are only indulging in politicking.

Tejasvi Surya is MP, Bengaluru South and is the National President of BJP Yuva Morcha. The views expressed are personal