How women's quota bill defeat fuelled PM Modi-Mamata Banerjee clash in West Bengal | EXPLAINED

The high-profile defeat of the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill for women's reservation and delimitation in the Lok Sabha has further intensified election battles in West Bengal, ahead of the Thursday polling date.

Thursday will see the first phase of the elections, in which 152 constituencies—including Cooch Behar, Jhargram, Purulia, Darjeeling, Malda, and Murshidabad—will head to the polls. The remaining 129 constituencies will go to the polls on April 29.

Mamata Banerjee attacks PM Modi's 'crocodile tears'

Ahead of the first phase of the polls, West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee intensified her attacks against the women's quota bill being linked with the delimitation bill during her campaigns on Sunday.

"They tried to weaponise the genuine cause of women’s political representation to push their narrow, divisive political agenda. They have failed miserably. The people of Bengal have seen through the entire game," she said in a speech at a rally, alleging that the PM had misused his "national message" for political gains.

In an earlier post on X, she also declared that the TMC had the highest proportion of female elected representatives in both Parliament and state legislature, pointing out that her party was opposed to delimitation, not women's reservation.

CM Banerjee, who has also weaponised the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) issue to fend off the BJP and hold on to the reigns for a fourth term, lashed out at the viral video of PM Modi eating jhalmuri (a snack) after a rally at Jhargram.

Calling it his "Adivasi-Birodhi (Anti-Adivasi) mindset", she alleged that the PM's "extended snack break and photo-ops" had led to Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren—and his wife, MLA Kalpana Soren—being denied permission to fly their chopper into Jhargram as per their schedule.

"Two democratically elected leaders. Grounded. Kept waiting for hours. And ultimately forced to return to Ranchi without completing their scheduled programme," she wrote in an X post.

PM Modi accuses TMC of 'betraying' women

PM Modi weaponised the failure of the women's reservation bill in a series of back-to-back rallies across Bankura, Purulia, Jhargram and Medinipur.

These seats, which are part of the politically crucial Junglemahal belt and the surrounding areas saw the "anti-women" claim become part of the BJP's overall anti-incumbency rhetoric against the TMC.

Notably, women voters, who constitute nearly half the electorate in West Bengal, have been the biggest targets of welfare doles in the state.

"We want more and more daughters to enter politics. The sisters of West Bengal wanted 33 per cent reservation, and Modi ensured it. They wanted it implemented from 2029 itself, but TMC did not want it," he said at the Bankura rally.

He sharpened the 'anti-women' attack against the TMC in the Purulia rally, in which he also called out the ruling party's corruption and "maha jungle raj (grand jungle rule)".

The Purulia, Jhargram, and Medinipur rallies also saw PM Modi intensify his attacks against the ruling party's attempts to change Bengal's language and culture through infiltration.

"TMC only thinks about its vote bank. It thinks about infiltrators. It has no concern for anyone else," he said in one of the rallies.

The allegations of the ruling party's corruption were again connected to the women's quota bill failure, as he claimed that the TMC had conspired with Congress to block the bill as it feared that women from villages and small towns would enter politics and ask questions about corruption.

What actually happened to the women's quota bill?

In a special sitting of the Parliament on April 20, the bill managed to pass the simple majority condition by garnering 298 votes in its favour, against the Opposition's 230, which passed the simple majority step, but failed the special 2/3 majority step, as it fell short of 352 votes.

While the NDA alliance—and PM Modi as well, in a potent address to the nation a day later—labelled the Opposition as "anti-women" for blocking the passage of the bill in the Lok Sabha, the INDIA bloc retaliated by attacking the delimitation bill attached to the women's quota bill.