“In our experience of 11 years of the BJP in power, if the BJP gives it in writing that they will appoint a woman Prime Minister, even then we will not trust them.”Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav’s sharp retort to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s offer during the Lok Sabha debate on Friday — that the proceedings be paused for an hour so he could bring an official amendment to increase the number of seats per state by 50% — sums up the state of politics at the moment, where trust deficit is a problem big enough to dissolve the traditional methods of dispute resolution that helped keep the system going despite the cross-aisle differences.AdvertisementSenior Lok Sabha MPs admit there used to be a “strong internal mechanism” between the ruling and Opposition parties that used to help them work out unanimous formulae when it came to issues of national importance. Delimitation, for example. “In 2001, before the delimitation exercise began, there were multiple rounds of intense discussions between the two sides. Then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then Home Minister L K Advani had a robust communication line with senior Congress leaders, for instance, Pranab Mukherjee. They made every decision after negotiations and discussions. But the communication lines are completely broken now,” said a senior BJP leader.A senior Congress leader said there was “no proper communication” from the government or “prior discussions” for even a “crucial and pathbreaking piece of legislation”.“There is a complete breakdown in the consultation process when it comes to pushing Bills. The BJP seems to believe in bulldozing the decisions and always wants to flaunt its so-called majority even after it lost it in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024. It does not believe in federalism and wants a presidential form of government where the PM is the first and last word on everything,” he said.AdvertisementThe special sitting of the Budget Session that was convened to fast-track the implementation of the women’s reservation law passed in September 2023 saw 103 MPs participate in the debate. In the end, the NDA failed to muster up the numbers to cross the two-thirds majority threshold required to push through the Constitution (One Hundred And Thirty-First Amendment) Bill, 2026 — that was brought in along with the delimitation and union territories Bills to advance the implementation of the women’s reservation law in an expanded House — with the outcome illustrating the deepening fault lines.The BJP, in response, has decided to launch a wide-ranging campaign against the Opposition, painting it as “mahila virodhi (anti-women)”. But the Opposition believes the ruling party won’t be in a position to take advantage of women’s sentiments because of the parallel narrative around delimitation — that the BJP was using women as a shield to damage the federal balance — and the criticism around the way the government brought in the three Bills.The sentiment behind Akhilesh’s remark in the House — which he repeated outside Parliament too — was reflected in every public gesture of Tamil Nadu CM and DMK chief M K Stalin. In a detailed post, he explained his party’s position and targeted the BJP over the lack of consultation. “We want the Women’s Reservation Bill to be implemented NOW. Tamil Nadu was among the earliest to implement reservation for women in local bodies … Our concern is with delimitation, which requires careful thought to ensure it is fair, especially for southern states. We asked for consultation, clarity, and consensus. At the very least, the Bill could have been delinked and implemented. The NDA could have delinked it. They chose not to. They could have used this time to consult states on delimitation. They chose not to. They could have addressed these concerns in the Bill. They chose not to …”you may likeThe chronology of events leading up to the special sitting of Parliament shows why the DMK and the others in the Opposition believe that the trust deficit has widened. On March 22, in the middle of the Budget session, Amit Shah called Opposition leaders individually and in smaller groups to discuss ways to fast-track the implementation of women’s reservation in time for the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. Many major parties skipped Shah’s briefing and instead asked for an all-party meeting. The parties that attended the briefing heard him out, but they also sought a detailed discussion, saying it could be held after April 29, when polling concludes in West Bengal. However, the government went ahead and announced the April 16-18 session, and in the draft Bills circulated earlier this week, the Opposition saw an attempt to alter the nation’s “constitutional fabric” rather than simply empowering women.The Centre’s defeat in the Lok Sabha is expected to reverberate across the political landscape in the coming days, with the immediate impact likely to be felt in poll-bound West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, both Opposition-ruled states. However, given that the DMK has countered the BJP’s narrative by underlining that it wants women’s reservation to be implemented immediately, and the TMC is a party known for its pro-women policies and for giving women adequate representation (38% of its MPs are women), the ruling party’s charges are unlikely to stick to these parties.For now, the Opposition appears to be the most united it has been since the emergence of the BJP as the dominant political force on the national stage. This was evident as Opposition leaders met on Saturday morning in the aftermath of dealing the BJP its first major legislative loss since it came to power over a decade ago. There is an acknowledgement in the Opposition that while the parties have their own individual identity and particular political interests that may often be at odds with each other, on larger questions of national importance, they cannot allow the BJP to have its way like earlier. While the role played by each party in defeating the Bills was acknowledged, there was effusive praise for the Samajwadi Party, all of whose 37 MPs backed the Opposition’s attempts to stop the government in its tracks, even though Uttar Pradesh would have been a beneficiary of the delimitation exercise.