DELIMITATION AND PARLIAMENT SEATS

• Delimitation is the exercise of determining both the number of seats and the territorial boundaries of constituencies for the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies.
• It is undertaken by a Delimitation Commission constituted under a law enacted by Parliament. In the past, this process has been carried out using data from the 1951, 1961, and 1971 Censuses.
• Based on the 1971 Census, when India’s population stood at about 54.8 crore, the strength of the Lok Sabha was fixed at 543 seats.
• This figure has since been kept unchanged to promote population stabilisation efforts. Under existing constitutional provisions, a fresh readjustment is scheduled to take place after the Census to be conducted in 2027.
• Further, in 2023, Parliament enacted the 106th Constitutional Amendment, which mandates reservation of one-third of seats for women in both the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies.
• This reservation is to be implemented following the delimitation exercise based on the next Census

3. 131st Amendment

• The 131st Constitutional Amendment Bill sought to introduce three major changes. First, it proposed raising the upper limit of Lok Sabha seats from 550 to 850. Second, it aimed to authorize Parliament to decide which Census would serve as the basis for delimitation.
• Third, it intended to separate the provision of one-third reservation for women from the forthcoming 2027 Census, allowing it instead to be implemented through delimitation using data from the last published Census of 2011.
• The Delimitation Bill, 2026, envisaged the periodic establishment of a Delimitation Commission by the Union government. This body would be responsible for distributing Lok Sabha seats among States and Union Territories according to the most recent Census data.
• If the Bill had been enacted and a Commission formed immediately, the seat allocation would have relied on figures from the 2011 Census

4. Issues and Criticism of the bill

• The government maintained that expanding the strength of the Lok Sabha by roughly 50%—from 543 to 816 seats—would facilitate smooth implementation of one-third reservation for women in a larger House. This would have meant reserving about 272 seats for women.
• However, the Opposition voiced several concerns. First, it argued that women’s reservation need not be tied to the delimitation exercise, since the 106th Constitutional Amendment of 2023 already permits one-third reservation within the existing 543 seats.
• Second, the proposed Bills did not clearly ensure a proportional 50% increase in seats for every State and Union Territory; instead, the Delimitation Bill suggested that seat allocation would depend on population figures from the latest Census.
• Third, the Opposition emphasized that an issue of such significance and sensitivity requires thorough deliberation and should not be hurried through during a short parliamentary session

5. Way Forward

Democracy signifies governance by the people, where representatives are chosen on the foundational principle of “one citizen–one vote–one value.” However, this principle was moderated in 1976, when delimitation was frozen on the basis of the 1971 Census to support population control efforts. In a federal system like India’s, any future delimitation exercise must account for the uneven population growth among different States.

Article 81(2) of the Constitution states that, as far as possible, the ratio of seats to population should remain uniform across States. While a proportional 50% increase in seats may serve as a compromise between democratic representation and federal balance, it would be prudent to examine such a proposal more thoroughly through parliamentary committee deliberations. At the same time, a pressing reform in India’s democratic framework is the strengthening of local self-governments, such as Panchayats and Municipalities, which interact closely with citizens in their everyday lives