The proposed delimitation exercise in India has taken a significant political turn after the defeat of a key constitutional amendment bill in the Lok Sabha. The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, which was part of a broader legislative package linked to delimitation and the expansion of parliamentary seats, failed to secure the mandatory two-thirds majority in the House. The bill received 298 votes in favour and 230 against, falling short of the required threshold, marking a major legislative setback for the Union government.
Amid this backdrop, senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram raised concerns about the potential consequences of delimitation on Tamil Nadu’s representation in the Lok Sabha. He stated, “Tamil Nadu’s current representation in the Lok Sabha is 39. They said it would rise to 58. I said this is mere illusion. When delimitation is carried out, that 58 will drop to 46.”
In contrast, P. Chidambaram projected, “Uttar Pradesh’s current number is 80. It will first rise to 120, and after delimitation, it will further increase to about 140.”
He also pointed out that the overall share of southern states in the Lok Sabha could decline from 24.3 percent to 20.7 percent after delimitation, stating, “The voice of the southern states in the Lok Sabha will be suppressed, stifled.”
While speaking to ANI, legal expert Swapnil Tripathi provided a legal perspective on these claims and explained how the constitutional framework could lead to such outcomes. In the interview, he stated, “If you read the text of the bill, that’s absolutely true. Because currently there was a freeze in the Constitution in Articles 81 and 82, which said any seat allocation to states in Parliament has to be in accordance with the census figures of 1971. So it’s frozen at that number. Even if the government wanted to go ahead with this assurance that we will only attempt a 50% increase, so nobody’s losing seats, there has to be a similar proviso in the text of the bills, which was completely missing.”
Swapnil Tripathi explained, “Whenever the Delimitation Commission conducts this exercise, it will go by what the amended text of the Constitution says, which requires that the ratio of the number of seats a state gets and the population they represent be uniform across states. So it would have to adopt a population-based criterion. If there is nothing in the text to tell them to maintain the current ratio, they would not be bound by it.”
He further clarified that assurances such as limiting seat increases or protecting states like Tamil Nadu would need to be clearly written into the constitutional amendment.
