CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI ■ ■ bengaluru l Saturday l April 18, 2026 l `9.00 l PAGES 22 l late city EDITION Bills FAIL LS TEST MLA Kulkarni, 15 others get life term E x p r e s s N e w s Se r v i c e @ Bengaluru ‘Wrath of women’ looms as LOSS BY 298:230 draws battle lines J aya n t h J a c o b @ New Delhi Shah directly named the Congress, DMK, TMC, and other Opposition parThe battle over the women’s reserva- ties, linking their resistance to the uption Bill in the Lok Sabha on Friday coming electoral battles. The subtext: went far beyond the arithmetic of 298 resistance would be framed as opposivotes in favour and 230 against. It un- tion to women’s empowerment, with folded as a tightly calibrated political the BJP seeking to consolidate women contest over narrative, constituency- as a cross-cutting constituency cutting building, and the future architecture across caste and region. of representation, with the The government’s argument gover nment invoking the rested on two assertions — “wrath of women” in the 2029 that women’s quota is insepaLok Sabha elections and berable from delimitation for its yond, and the Opposition early rollout, and that conwarning that the measure cerns about regional imbalmasked a larger attempt to reance, particularly fears of the draw India’s electoral map. South losing representation, For the BJP-led government, Conscience are misplaced. Shah sought to vote call the Constitution (131st Amendneutralise that anxiety insist, ment) Bill, 2026 was not mere- “Please reflect ing that representation would upon your ly a legislative proposal but an not decline and that “no state conscience, electoral statement. Hours bewill face a loss of seats,” posiremembering fore the vote, Prime Minister tioning delimitation as a much Narendra Modi appealed di- the women in needed structural correction. your own rectly to MPs, urging them to The Opposition, however, families... Let us rejected the premise entirely rise above partisan divides. . Home minister Amit Shah ensure that the Leader of Opposition Rahul women, who amplified the political framGandhi described the bill as a ing, explicitly positioning are half of the structural redesign masked as nation’s women as a decisive electoral reform. The Opposition posipopulation, constituency that could shape tioned itself not against womreceive their outcomes across multiple elecen’s reservation, but against rightful due,” tion cycles. Warning of suswhat it described as its “setained political consequences, Modi appealed. quencing design”. By the time he said Opposition parties the bill failed to secure a twowould face the “wrath of women” not thirds majority, it had already taken only in the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, on a dual life. For the government, it but “at every level, in every election, was a forward-looking attempt to build and at every place,” signalling an at- a long-term narrative centred on womtempt to convert women’s reservation en. For the Opposition, it became a into a durable political theme an- rare point of convergence, an issue chored in the BJP’s governance narra- framed not as rejection of women’s tive and Modi’s personal popularity reservation, but as resistance to the among women voters. design of delimitation itself. Hectic parleys and discreet messages RA J E SH K U MAR THAK U R @ New Delhi HECTIC parleys and discreet back channel negotiations preceded the crucial vote. With the odds stacked against it, the NDA tasked BJP leaders who enjoy personal rapport with Opposition leaders with mustering support for the bill. As for the Opposition, senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi worked the phones to ensure Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress aligns with the Opposition’s stand on the bill. Sources said Rahul spoke to TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee, while Kharge called up Mamata. According to BJP sources, senior leaders were roped in to beat the numbers game in the Lok Sabha. Ministers and senior BJP leaders, along with leaders of other NDA allies, were in touch with Opposition parties, albeit in a discreet manner. Within NDA, several rounds of strategic meetings were held to see if the voting could yield the desired results. Sources said senior leaders J P Nadda and Rajnath Singh were also involved in talks with Opposition parties. Hours before the voting on Friday, it became evident that the NDA’s collective efforts to overcome the Opposition’s numerical strength would not succeed. However, NDA continued to work behind the scenes to win support through other means, including cross-voting. Soon after the voting, NDA leaders met to deliberate on the post-vote strategy The meeting, . also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, decided to target the Opposition parties for their “anti-women” stance, sources said. Another NDA meeting is scheduled on Saturday followed by a , Cabinet meeting at 11.30 am, sources said. pic: pti An attempt to change electoral map: Rahul p r ee t h a n a i r @ New Delhi THE Constitution amendment bill has nothing to do with women’s reservation but is an attempt to change India’s electoral map so that the BJP can retain p o w e r f o r e v e r, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Friday said. Participating in the debate in Lok Sabha, he said the proposal does not address women’s empowerment and called it a “shameful act”. He said the opposition supports women’s reservation, but not in this manner. “We will help pass it for implementation from this very moment. What is being presented now as the women’s bill is something else, and the truth about it needs to be told.” He also took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi using an anecdote about a magic show he watched as a child, drawing strong protests from BJP MPs. Defence minister Rajnath Singh said Rahul must apologise.  P9 Former minister and Congress MLA from the Dharwad constituency Vinay Kulkarni and 15 others were sentenced to life imprisonment in the 2016 murder of zilla panchayat member Yogesh Goudar. Another convict, police inspector Channakeshava B Tingarikar, was sentenced to seven-year imprisonment by the special court on Friday On Wednesday . , the special court for sitting and former MPs and MLAs had convicted 17 accused on charges of murder, criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence and other offences. P4 9 of family burnt alive as car hits bus Ramakrishna Badseshi @ Kalaburagi/Yadgir Nine persons of a family were charred to death, while a child survived with critical injuries when the car in which they were travelling crashed into a private bus near Shantpur Cross of Shorapur taluk (Surpur) of Yadgir district on Friday . Yadgir SP Pruthvik Shankar said 10 people -- five adults and five children, including a oneand-a-half-year-old kid -- were travelling in a Kia Sonnet car. All the occupants of the car, except a ten-year-old, died. The deceased were from Sirwar town of Raichur district. They were returning home after visiting Venugopala Swamy temple at Shorapur. P7