Delimitation Exercise Explained: Why Government Wants To Increase Lok Sabha Seats From 543 To 850 As New Plan Aims For 33% Women’s Reservation

The government is about to start redrawing parliamentary constituencies and plans to bump up the number of Lok Sabha seats from 543 to 850. This move aims to make space for one-third reservation for women in Parliament and to reflect how much the population has grown over the years. They’ll set up a new Delimitation Commission to handle this. The plan is to finish the whole process before the 2029 General Elections.

The last time they did something like this was back in 2002, but that time, they just shifted the boundaries around and didn’t change the total number of seats.

On Wednesday, the government introduced three new bills, including the Constitution Amendment Bill and the Delimitation Bill. These will set up the process for adding new seats and redrawing the borders of existing ones. The delimitation work will use data from the 2011 census, since the next census isn’t expected for another year.

All three bills are lined up for introduction in Parliament during an extended Budget Session, which is scheduled from April 16 to 18.

What is the Delimitation exercise? 

Delimitation is a routine exercise and is carried out every few decades by carving out new seats and deciding their boundaries to ensure that the states get their due representation with a growing population. The latest exercise if the fifth such exercise.

The initial delimitation was done in 1952, using the 1951 census which assigned 494 Lok Sabha seats. This was done in 1963 and 1973. During the 1973 exercise, based on 1971 census data, the number of seats were fixed at 543, while the population of the country was 54.8 crore.

In the recent revision in 2002, although the seats were not altered, only their boundaries were redefined as discussed above.

Based on the last official census statistics of 2011 the number of people has doubled since 1971, necessitating a redistribution between states.

Some of the constituencies such as those in North and South India are composed of 2-3 million voters, whereas others such as Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu or Ladakh, have 47,972, 1,02,260 and 1,59,949 voters, respectively.

INDIA bloc to oppose delimitation bill in special session

INDIA bloc leaders on Wednesday decided to oppose the delimitation bill pushed with an amendment to Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023, to provide 33 per cent reservation for women legislators in Lok Sabha and state assemblies.

The opposition clarified that it is not against the women’s reservation and urged them to implement Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023 but objected to the delimitation process, which they believe weakens the representation of the southern and north-eastern states in the Lok Sabha.

The decision was made in a meeting at the residence of Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge in Delhi. Along with Congress President, Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, RJD Working President Tejashwi Yadav, NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal, and other prominent INDIA bloc leaders attended the meeting.
After the meeting, Mallikarjun Kharge announced the INDIA bloc’s decision, accusing the government of making a “politically motivated” move to suppress the opposition parties.

“We are all in favour of the Women’s Reservation Bill. But the way in which they have brought it, we have reservations about that. It is politically motivated. Just to suppress the Opposition parties, the govt is doing this. Though we have supported the Women’s Reservation Bill continuously, we insist that the earlier amendments be implemented. They are playing some tricks with delimitation. We all parties should unitedly should fight in Parliament. We will oppose this bill, but we are not against the reservation (for women),” Kharge said.

“The way in which they have put in the bill, be it delimitation, they have not even cleared the census. All powers of the Constitution are being taken by the executive. Mostly, the power which can be exercised by the institutions, the parliament they have given is so that they can change delimitation at any time…They have already deceived us in Assam and J&K,” he added.

(With inputs from ANI)

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