The government has moved a little closer to the two-thirds majority required for the 131st Constitution Amendment Bill on women's reservation and the Delimitation Bill to pass the Parliament litmus test after the NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) indicated its support for it, though with a rider.
If the demanded 50 per cent uniform increase in states' Lok Sabha representation is brought into the amended draft, NCP-SP's eight MPs are likely to vote in favour, bringing the tally to 332, 30 short of 362 votes required in the 543-member Lok Sabha.
The BJP-led NDA would be looking up to DMK, which has 22 MPs and has broken away from the INDIA bloc, and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, to get the required number.
A first look at the Women's Reservation and Delimitation Bill
The upcoming monsoon session will focus heavily on the 131st Constitutional Amendment Bill, which addresses women's reservation. The bill was initially introduced during the Budget Session on April 17. However, the government failed to get the numbers, leading to first-ever failure of any bill brought by the government in the last 12 years. The bill had received 298 votes in favour, while the opposition received 230. A total of 528 MPs voted. The benchmark was two-thirds majority or 352 votes.
However, in the last three months, the Lok Sabha mathematics has changed dramatically.
First, with the split in the TMC, a block of 20 MPs merged with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) and joined the NDA.
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Later, six MPs of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction) joined Shinde's Shiv Sena; the number of MPs supporting the bill has now reached 324.
Now the NDA needs only 28 more votes. NCP-SCP MP Supriya Sule on Wednesday claimed that if the government brings a guaranteed 50 per cent uniform increase in Lok Sabha seats, her party will support the bill.
More interestingly, she added that parties like DMK and Samajwadi Party were also open to consider support on such a stipulation.
If NCP-SP and DMK agree to vote in favour of the bill, the NDA will have the support of 354 MPs. While the two-thirds majority is 364, last time only 528 members voted, bringing the magical number down to 352. In such a scenario, DMK and NCP-SP's support would be enough.
However, if the DMK abstains from voting, the two-thirds majority will further come down to 348, 16 more than 332, what the ruling alliance has. The scenario would demand the absence of 24 more MPs to get the two-thirds majority.
Therefore, despite a dramatic rise in NDA's numbers and possible shifts in stance of parties, NDA would need additional support to get the bill through.