The Centre on Thursday introduced key amendment bills to operationalise the Women’s Reservation law passed in 2023, proposing a major expansion of the Lok Sabha and a nationwide delimitation exercise.
The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, the centrepiece of the legislative push, proposes increasing the Lok Sabha’s strength from the existing 543 seats to a maximum of 850, including 815 seats for states and 35 for Union Territories.
Alongside, the Delimitation Bill, 2026, seeks a readjustment of parliamentary and assembly constituencies.
Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said the number of seats across states will increase by 50 per cent, with 272 of the 815 seats reserved for women.
“Neither men nor any state will suffer any loss after the implementation of the women's quota,” he said in the Lok Sabha.
He added that reservation for women belonging to Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes would be provided within the overall quota in both the Parliament and state assemblies.
Referring to the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, Meghwal said that without the proposed amendment, reservation of constituencies for women may not be feasible in time for the 2029 general elections, as it depends on post-2026 census data.
“The main objective of the bill is to give women their due rights,” he said.
Highlighting India’s early adoption of equal voting rights, Meghwal said women in the United States received voting rights 144 years after men, while in the United Kingdom, women were granted conditional voting rights in 1918 and full rights only in 1928.
“In India, women got the right to vote along with men since the first election,” he said.
The minister urged all parties to support the legislation.
The Lok Sabha took up the Constitution Amendment Bill, the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, and the Delimitation Bill, 2026, for debate and passage after a nearly 40-minute discussion.
Following the debate, the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill was introduced with 251 members supporting it and 185 voting against.
The proposed law states that seats reserved for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies “shall be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in a state or Union territory”.
Several opposition parties have opposed the delimitation provisions while maintaining that they support reservation for women in legislative bodies.