NEW DELHI — The ruling administration has strongly condemned the opposition's "anti-women mindset" following the defeat of a constitutional amendment that would have empowered millions of female citizens, provided they did not mind the immediate addition of 307 new parliamentary constituencies strategically concentrated in the ruling party's strongholds.

"This was a pure, unadulterated victory for gender equality, which is why we naturally had to tie its implementation to a massive delimitation exercise based on a fifteen-year-old census," said a senior minister, whose department spent the last three days explaining why women could only be emancipated if the total number of Lok Sabha seats was arbitrarily increased to 850. "The opposition has shown they do not care about women's rights, whereas we only wanted to use women to subtly rewrite the federal structure of the republic. It is a dark day for democracy."

The aborted legislation was formally introduced to operationalize a 2023 women's reservation law that parliament had already unanimously passed. However, the new amendment stipulated that the reservations could only take effect after parliamentary boundaries were entirely redrawn, a process projected to significantly dilute the electoral weight of southern states.

"We cannot rush these things," noted a government spokesperson, dismissing suggestions that the 2023 quota could simply be applied to the existing 543 seats. "True female empowerment cannot occur in a vacuum. It can only happen once we have thoroughly gerrymandered the southern peninsula out of electoral relevance. Anything less would be a disservice to the women of this nation."