NEW DELHI: A delegation of eight MPs from Sharad Pawar led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday during the ongoing Monsoon Session of Parliament to discuss issues concerning Maharashtra.
The meeting comes amid a political debate over the implementation of the women’s reservation law and its proposed linkage with the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies.
Ahead of the meeting, the Congress urged its INDIA bloc ally to convey the opposition alliance’s position that women’s reservation should be implemented without waiting for the delimitation exercise.
AICC secretary Sachin Sawant appealed to the NCP (SP) delegation to ask the Prime Minister to implement the Women’s Reservation Act, passed by Parliament in 2023, at the earliest.
In a post on X on Sunday, Sawant said the NCP (SP) MPs should make it clear that the INDIA bloc does not support making the reservation provisions conditional on delimitation.
He also stressed the importance of maintaining unity among opposition parties on the issue and ensuring that their position is communicated clearly to the government.
NCP (SP) delegation to highlight Maharashtra concerns
The delegation will be led by party MP Supriya Sule and is expected to raise several issues affecting Maharashtra.
Sule said on Saturday that the MPs wanted to draw the Prime Minister’s attention to challenges including farmer suicides, water shortages and the impact of rapid urbanisation across the state.
She said the delegation believed that the Prime Minister should be directly apprised of the problems facing Maharashtra and the difficulties being experienced by people in different parts of the state.
BJP leader Navneet Rana welcomed the proposed interaction, saying elected representatives should have the opportunity to discuss matters related to Maharashtra’s development with the Prime Minister.
Rana said the meeting should be viewed in the context of the state’s development rather than political speculation. She maintained that approaching the Prime Minister over issues affecting Maharashtra could benefit the state.
Women’s quota and delimitation remain contentious
The political disagreement centres on the government’s proposal to connect the implementation of women’s reservation with the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies.
The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, introduced in the Lok Sabha on April 16, proposed increasing the strength of the House to 850 seats and sought to accelerate the implementation of the women’s reservation framework approved in 2023.
The proposed legislation, however, could not secure the constitutionally mandated two-thirds majority of members present and voting and therefore remained pending after the extended Budget Session.
The Congress and several other opposition parties have supported reservation for women in Parliament but have objected to making its implementation dependent on delimitation.
They have maintained that the reservation provisions should come into effect without waiting for the expansion and redrawing of Lok Sabha constituencies.
The NCP (SP) delegation’s meeting with Modi is therefore taking place against the backdrop of both Maharashtra-specific concerns and a wider political disagreement over the timeline for implementing women’s reservation.