850 seats in Lok Sabha: NDA faces two-thirds majority and the big challenge of delimitation. 850 seats in Lok Sabha: NDA faces two-thirds majority and the big challenge of delimitation.

The NDA government at the Center is preparing to make a big move in the upcoming monsoon session. Along with making women’s reservation effective from 2029, the government is going to bring a delimitation bill to increase the number of Lok Sabha seats from 543 to 850. However, for this historic change, the government will need a constitutional amendment, for which the biggest challenge remains to gather the magic figure of two-thirds majority in both the Houses of Parliament. At present NDA needs the support of 41 MPs in the Lok Sabha and 9 in the Rajya Sabha.

Constitutional complications and census mathematics

At the center of this entire delimitation is Article 81 of the Constitution, which directs the allocation of seats to be in proportion to the population. This allocation of seats based on the 1971 census has been frozen for decades. If the government uses the 2011 census as the basis, the seats in North India will increase rapidly, which the southern states are opposing. Parties like DMK want to protect the interests of the southern states which have performed better in population control. To break the impasse, the government may choose to extend the freeze deadline, while using 2011 data as the basis for delimitation within the state could serve as a means to build consensus with opposition parties.