New Delhi: A full 940 days after it was passed unanimously in the Lok Sabha and 939 days after it was passed in the Rajya Sabha, the Union government on Thursday (April 16) notified that The Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, 2023 granting 33% reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and in state assemblies “shall come into force” on April 16.This Act had been notified in the gazette earlier on September 28, 2023, after President Droupadi Murmu gave her assent to it, and that notification had specified that another one would be required to set the date of enforcement. “It shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint,” the earlier notification had stated.The Union government has not issued any clarifications around why this new April 16 notification was issued now, during the special session of parliament.The timing of this notification is particularly important – and particularly confusing – because it came hours after the Union government introduced three Bills in parliament linking women’s reservation, Lok Sabha expansion and delimitation. The Narendra Modi regime has tried to pit the opposition’s criticisms against this three-Bill package as “opposing women’s reservation”, but opposition leaders have said that they had made their support for women’s reservation clear in 2023. Even if these two of the three Bills are defeated in parliament – which they could be, given that constitutional amendments need a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament – the 2023 law for women’s reservation remains in place. With the 2023 Act now notified, the procedure laid down in it, tying it to the next census and delimitation exercise has been set in motion. If the constitutional amendment Bills introduced on Thursday are not passed, the ongoing Census allows the 2023 Act to be on course for operation as The Delimitation Bill 2026, also introduced on Thursday, is not a constitutional amendment Bill and can be passed following a simple majority in parliament.While the 2023 law linked women’s reservations to the 2027 Census, the process for which has begun, the new Bills say that delimitation, Lok Sabha expansion and women’s reservations can be linked to whichever Census parliament chooses. This, along with the Bills’ opacity around the conditions using which the Modi regime intends to increase the size of the Lok Sabha from 540 to 850, has led to the allegation that the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre is using women’s reservation as a ruse to tilt the electoral playing field in its favour.Women’s reservation in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies was written into the law in 2023, though the lack of a timeline provided for implementation – since it was linked to a delimitation clause and hence the next Census – had raised eyebrows. Now, with the government suddenly seeking to push implementation in ways that could change India’s federal structure by reducing the voice of southern states and other states where population control has been more successful, but at the same time notifying the 2023 Act, the Union government’s plans around the matter continue to raise questions.Thursday’s notification of the 2023 law, opposition leaders have said, is a “desperate attempt” to save that law since the Union government knows it does not have the numbers to pass the three new Bills through parliament.“It is strange that the Bill which had been gazetted in 2023 September has been re-gazetted after the suspension of Rule 66 which says if a Bill which is contingent on the passage of another Bill in the House fails, then the original Bill or the original Act also become infructuous. By re-notifying it in the gazette after Rule 66 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Lok Sabha has been suspended, it seems to be a desperate attempt to save the 106th Act in case the 131st Amendment fails to pass muster,” Congress MP Manish Tewari told The Indian Express.