The Indian government introduced legislation on Wednesday to expand the Lok Sabha to 850 seats, triggering an immediate political confrontation with southern states over fears of diminished regional power. Parliament convened a special three-day session starting April 16 to debate the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill and the Delimitation Bill of 2026. The legislation uses the 2011 Census to redraw electoral boundaries. This bypasses previous constitutional mandates linking redistricting to the first post-2026 census, which remains ongoing.
The expansion is directly tied to the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam. The move enables a 33 percent reservation for women, translating to roughly 273 seats in the expanded lower house ahead of the 2029 general elections. The new structure allocates up to 815 seats for states and 35 for Union Territories, according to a Scroll report. Southern states strongly oppose the use of older demographic data. Leaders in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka argue the redistricting punishes regions that successfully implemented population control measures, The News Minute confirmed. Congress MP Manish Tewari and regional leaders warned that a proportional drop in southern seat share threatens the federal balance, a concern the Centre is expected to address during the parliamentary sessions.
The legislation ends a decades-long freeze on inter-state seat redistribution. The 42nd Amendment initially enforced this freeze in 1976. The 84th Amendment later extended it in 2001 to preserve regional harmony during periods of uneven population growth. The current bills alter Article 82 of the Constitution. Delimitation shifts from an automatic decadal exercise triggered by a completed census to a flexible parliamentary procedure. The central government now holds the power to adopt specific past census data based on a simple majority vote, reshaping national politics for future electoral cycles.