The Broken Compact: Delimitation and the Looming Crisis of Political Justice in India

TWO WEEKS AGO, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to the national airwaves to deliver a stinging indictment: he characterised the Opposition’s rejection of the Delimitation Bill as a direct assault on the dignity of Indian women, even terming it “a foeticide of the idea of women’s representation before the whole world, via their opposition to the move”. The government’s narrative appeared to have been a gamble on the fragility of public memory, hinged on the hope that Indian citizens may have forgotten that the women’s reservation in the legislature had was already been codified into law back in 2023 through the passing of the 106th Constitutional Amendment Act (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam),.

The political theater of April 2026 suggests that women’s empowerment is being weaponized as a moral smokescreen to hide a more radical agenda of electoral re-engineering. This re-engineering could fundamentally reshape the federal balance in the country, penalising some of the highest performing states. But beyond the current debacle, how must we view the issue of delimitation? Is an enlarged Parliament necessarily what India needs at the moment? Are there critical learnings for India from a global perspective? And if at all delimitation is to be undertaken, what are the best options that lie ahead?

Constitutional Mandate Around Delimitation

The Preamble of the Indian Constitution enshrines the principle of political justice, which mandates that no arbitrary distinction can be made between citizens in the political sphere. This concept is embodied in the doctrine of "one person = one vote = one value." Ideally, representation should be uniform; for instance, if one Member of Parliament (‘MP’) represents 10 lakh people in Uttar Pradesh, the same ratio should apply in Kerala. In practice, however, a significant disparity exists: a single MP represents approximately 32 lakh constituents in Uttar Pradesh, compared to only 18 lakh in Kerala.

Article 81(2)(a) of the Constitution mandates that the number of Lok Sabha seats assigned to each state must be proportional to its population. The inclusion of the qualifier "so far as practicable" implies that while a perfect mathematical ratio is the goal, the Constitution allows for minor deviations. However, the overarching intent is to ensure that the ratio between seats and population remains uniform across all states.

Article 82 provides for the readjustment of seats in the Lok Sabha following the completion of each census. However, under current constitutional amendments, this readjustment has been suspended until the relevant figures for the first census taken after the year 2026 are published. This process ensures that constituency boundaries and seat allocations are updated to reflect population changes, maintaining the principle of proportional representation.

Panning the History

The historical trajectory of India’s parliamentary growth was consistent until the early 1970s. The first expansion in Lok Sabha happened in 1952.