Constitution amendment defeated in Lok Sabha

New Delhi, Apr 17: The Lok Sabha on Friday rejected the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, which proposed to increase the strength of the House of the People from 550 to 850 members, officials said.
The bill failed to get the requisite two-thirds majority in the Lower House required for a constitutional amendment. While 278 of the 489 members present voted in favour of the bill, 211 voted against it, they said.
After the constitutional amendment bill failed to pass, the government proceeded to withdraw the Delimitation Bill, 2026, and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026.
The three bills were part of a coordinated legislative effort to enable a nationwide delimitation exercise after decades. The Constitution amendment provided the enabling changes — expanding the Lok Sabha’s strength, removing the freeze on seat allocation based on the 1971 Census, and allowing representation to be recalculated on updated census data.
The Delimitation Bill was to operationalise this framework by constituting a Delimitation Commission to allocate seats and redraw constituencies. The Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill proposed consequential changes for Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir.
The legislative package was also linked to the implementation of one-third reservation for women in Parliament and state assemblies, which was to take effect after the delimitation exercise was completed.
Opposition parties, while supporting the women’s quota, demanded its implementation independent of delimitation. Several southern leaders took strong objection to the exercise, alleging it would reduce the voice of southern states in Parliament due to their lower population growth.
They alleged that the women’s reservation law was tied to delimitation as a ploy to push the passage of the latter, which would increase the strength of Lok Sabha seats from Hindi-speaking northern states, thereby benefiting the ruling BJP. Southern parties and the Congress had made it clear they would oppose the constitutional amendment and delimitation. (KNS)