Constitutional Amendment Bill Defeated in Lok Sabha; Delimitation and Union Territories Bills Withdrawn

Udaipur, Apr 17, 2026: The Centre withdrew the Delimitation Bills after the Constitutional Amendment Bill to expand Lok Sabha seats from 550 to 850 failed to get the 2/3 majority in Parliament today. Since it was a Constitutional amendment, it was necessary to get a 2/3 majority in the Lok Sabha. Of the 489 members in attendance at the session today, 278 voted in favour of the bill while 211 voted against the amendment. Both, the Delimitation Bill 2026 as well as Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill 2026 were subsequently withdrawn.

All the three Bills, viz. Union Territories Laws (Amendment) 2026, Constitution (131st Amendment) and Delimitation Bill formed a supposedly coordinated effort by the legislative to facilitate a pan India delimitation exercise, after decades. Speaking for the Opposition in the Parliament, the LoP Rahul Gandhi said that the Bill has nothing to do with women reservation. This Bill instead, he said opposed the interests of OBC, SC and ST. He mentioned the Bills to be anti-National and against the interests of the Southern States, those in the North East, North West and smaller States.

Explaining

The Indian Constitution envisaged periodic readjustment of seats after each Census. However, this was put on hold through amendments beginning in 1976. Hence, since 1976 the allocation of seats in Lok Sabha among the states has remained frozen after the 1971 Census. India has not undertaken a full redistribution of seats for 50 years now.

Summary of Bills

Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 provided the requisite constitutional changes—expanding the Lok Sabha’s strength, eliminating the hold on seat allocation, and allowing representation to be reconstituted based on current census data.

Delimitation Bill, 2026 was to operationalise this framework by providing for the creation of a Delimitation Commission to carry out the task of assigning seats, redrawing constituencies, and deciding reservations.

Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026 proposed consequential modifications to laws governing Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu & Kashmir to align them with the altered constitutional and delimitation framework.

The Opposition

The opposition parties were in support of women's quota but asked for its implementation independant of delimitation. Delimitation was strongly objected to by the Southern states, arguing that their representation will decrease in terms of percentage, owing to lesser population. The opposition hence alleged that the women's reservation has been tied to delimitation to push passage of the latter law so that representation of states in the Hindi belt which has a majority for BJP, goes up.

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