Key Takeaways and Consequences
Special Parliamentary Session on Women's Reservation & Delimitation
The legislative package to implement women’s reservation and enable delimitation—the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirty-First Amendment) Bill, 2026, the Delimitation Bill, 2026, and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026—was not passed by the Lok Sabha, as it did not secure the required votes. As a result, the existing constitutional framework governing delimitation and women’s reservation continues to apply.
The resulting legal position is as follows:
- The maximum strength of the Lok Sabha remains at 550 seats.
- No delimitation exercise can be undertaken until the publication of the 2027 census figures.
- Any delimitation thereafter will be population-based, both for the allocation of seats among States in the Lok Sabha and for the drawing of constituencies in State Legislative Assemblies.
For more research on delimitation in India and other constitutional questions, explore the work of Charkha, the Constitutional Law Centre at Vidhi, linked below.
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About the Authors
Swapnil is the Lead at Charkha (Centre for Constitutional Law) at Vidhi. His areas of specialisation are judicial review and constitutional interpretation, with a particular focus on Public Interest Litigation. He read law at the NLU, Jodhpur, and thereafter pursued the BCL and the DPhil at the University of Oxford. He has worked with leading academics on projects involving constitutional reform and democratic transitions, and has also assisted in drafting constitutions for various bodies. His academic writing spans both peer-reviewed journals and public-facing platforms, including a fortnightly column for Bar & Bench titled 'Tryst with the Constitution'. Committed to constitutional literacy, he runs The Basic Structure, a widely read blog that simplifies constitutional law for general audiences. He also collaborates with students across universities to establish forums on constitutional law. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society, nominated in recognition of his work in the United Kingdom.
Mayuri is a Milon K Banerji Senior Resident Fellow at Charkha, Vidhi’s Constitutional Law Centre. She obtained her Doctorate in Law from Gujarat National Law University in 2026. She completed her LL.M. in Constitutional and Administrative Law from Gujarat National Law University in 2017, graduating with the R. B. Mehta Gold Medal, and holds a B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) from Amity Law School, Lucknow (2016). Her work lies at the intersection of constitutional theory and practice, with a focus on electoral reform, federalism, and local governance. At Vidhi, she has been closely involved in research and writing initiatives aimed at strengthening constitutional understanding, including her work on the Centrally Sponsored Schemes, the Anti-defection Law, Delimitation of Electoral Constituencies, and the Constitution Catalogues. She regularly engages with students across academic and professional forums and presents her research at national and international journals, seminars, and conferences. Prior to joining Vidhi, she served as an Assistant Professor of Law.
Lalit Panda is a Specialist (Rights and Regulation) at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, New Delhi, having originally joined in 2017 after a brief stint in the 21st Law Commission of India. He has produced research and advised on a wide range of subjects in public law, technology law, and regulation, with core interests in equality and discrimination, data protection, and regulatory design. He maintains a deep interest in understanding the unique roles of legal, economic, and political theory in policy choice, and has written on a number of issues in law and policy for media outlets and academic journals. He holds an undergraduate and a postgraduate degree in law from Gujarat National Law University and Harvard Law School, respectively.
