Activists from various women's rights organisations and secular parties gathered in Hyderabad on Saturday, June 27, to demand the immediate and unconditional implementation of the 33% Women's Reservation Act, 2023, including reservation for SC and ST women. They also demanded that it be delinked from the census and delimitation.
The meeting, held at Maqdoom Bhavan, Himayatnagar, was organised by women's rights and feminist organisations of Telangana in solidarity with the National Coalition for Women's Reservation (NCWR), to discuss the long-standing issue of women's reservation in Parliament and the state Assemblies.
The activists' demands come months after the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, introduced during the special Parliament session in April 2026, attempted to tie women's legal right to 33% reservation to a large-scale and contested seat expansion exercise involving 850 Lok Sabha seats. The gathering congratulated the secular political and democratic forces that had successfully opposed that bill, while voicing concern over the continued postponement of the Women's Reservation Act, 2023, a delay attributed to provisions under the Constitution's 106th Amendment Act, 2023.
Among the other demands raised at the meeting was that the Delimitation Bill must not be used by the BJP-led Union government to expand parliamentary seats in what the activists called an undemocratic and anti-federal manner. They also said that the 33% women's seats should be identified through a participatory and inclusive process involving states, communities and women's organisations.
The activists pointed to existing models for determining women's representation under the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments of the Panchayati Raj Act, and called for these to be used as a foundation to extend representation to religious minorities, persons marginalised on account of gender and sexuality, and other marginalised groups.
This article was written by a student interning with TNM.