New Delhi: Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Kiran Rijiju shared post-session exchange on Tuesday Congress MP Shashi Tharoor To sharpen his attack on the opposition over the defeat of the Women’s Reservation Amendment Bill, he claimed that Tharoor also “agreed” with his comment that the Congress could be seen as anti-women.Rijiju said in an interview with ANI, “We took a picture. When the Parliament session ended, Shashi Tharoor in the hall said to me…but no woman will believe that Shashi Tharoor is anti-women. I said, yes, no one will call you anti-women.”“That’s what he meant. Congress may be anti-women, but women will not consider Shashi Tharoor anti-women… He kind of agreed,” she said.The minister also hit out at the opposition parties for opposing the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, which seeks to provide 33% reservation for women in Parliament and state assemblies from the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.“Who would have thought that anyone would vote against women? We don’t have a two-thirds majority… but who would have even dreamed that Congress, TMC, Samajwadi Party would vote against women?” Rijiju said.He said opposition parties would “face the wrath of women” to oppose the bill, arguing that the issue should not be viewed through a political lens. Rijiju rejected the opposition’s argument that the bill wrongly linked women’s reservation to delimitation.“They say delimitation was linked… It is written in the 2023 law that delimitation will happen after the 2026 census and it will be implemented. Then why was it not opposed?” He said.He also dismissed concerns about the impact on southern states and said the government has clarified that the number of seats will increase equally across all states along with 33% reservation for women.On the demand for implementing women’s reservation within the existing number of 543 Lok Sabha seats, Rijiju argued that the current system is outdated.“The seats were decided on the basis of 1971 population… Some seats have 30 lakh or 40 lakh voters. Is this how democracy is supposed to work?” The population-to-seat ratio in India is much higher than many other countries, he said.Opposition parties had opposed the Constitution Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha on April 17. In the division vote, 298 MPs voted in favor, while 230 voted against, leading to its defeat.Subsequently, the government said it would not pursue two other related bills. The proposals aimed to increase the strength of the Lok Sabha from 543 to 816 seats with 33% reservation for women along with delimitation based on the 2011 census.