New Delhi: Ahead of the special session of parliament called by the Modi government, opposition parties of the INDIA bloc announced on Wednesday (April 15) that they will vote against the constitutional amendment bill that seeks to increase the strength of the Lok Sabha to 850 in order to “operationalise” 33% reservation for women’s reservation. Opposition parties held a joint meeting, following which they said that while they support women’s reservation, the government was trying to “play tricks” by using delimitation, and that, therefore, the opposition would unitedly oppose the government’s bills.On Tuesday (April 14), the Union government circulated copies of the three Bills: the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, the Delimitation Bill, 2026 and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026. The special session from April 16-18 is being called to implement the 2023 Women’s Reservation Act that provided for 33% reservation for women in the Lok Sabha and state legislatures.However, the legislation was tied to delimitation and census. Through the three bills being brought together on Thursday, the union government while stating its objective as “operationalise” women’s reservation, is seeking to bring in large-scale changes that will not just increase the strength of the Lok Sabha to 850 but result in significantly altered parliamentary arithmetics, representation based on population and centre-state relations.Following the meeting of all opposition parties on Wednesday, Congress president and leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, said that all opposition parties are united in their support to women’s reservation.“We are all in favour of women’s reservation but the way they have done it is politically motivated just to suppress the opposition parties,” said Kharge to reporters.Kharge said that women’s reservation has been unanimously supported in 2010 as well in 2023 and that the government should instead implement the Women’s Reservation Act, 2023.“They are playing tricks with delimitation. Therefore all parties will take one stand and unitedly fight in parliament. We will oppose this bill but we are not against women’s reservation,” he said.Congress MP Jairam Ramesh passed in 2023 should be implemented in the current strength of the Lok Sabha of 543.“We had demanded that women’s reservation should be implemented from 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Our demand was ignored. Now suddenly, they have decided in the middle of elections. They are going to lose in Bengal and Tamil Nadu. They have brought these three bills in the middle of elections. They have linked delimitation and women’s reservation and put it in the same bill,” he said.Ramesh said that the Delimitation Commission is being used as a weapon by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to get a majority.The meeting was attended by leaders from the Congress, DMK, TMC, JMM, RJD, Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SP), AAP, JKNC, CPI(M), IUML, CPI, RSP, Kerala Congress, VCK, among others. The Samajwadi Party has also given its support through online remarks.The BJD chief and leader of the opposition in the Odisha Legislative Assembly, former chief minister Naveen Patnaik, has also written to Chief Minister Mohan Majhi, asking for a special session to be convened “within 48 hours” to pass a resolution that “not even 0.001% of political rights of Odisha be allowed to be taken away by other states” by the Union government’s proposed delimitation Bill.