National Current Affairs
Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026
- 17 Apr 2026
- 3 min read
Why in News?
The Union Government has introduced the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, in Parliament. The bill proposes a significant expansion of the Lok Sabha’s composition, increasing the maximum strength from the current 550 to 850 members.
Key Points:
- Proposed Composition of the House: Total Seats to be increased to 850.
- State Representation: 815 members to be elected from the States.
- Union Territories (UTs): 35 members to be elected from the UTs.
- Rationale: The government cited the need to reflect India's current population dynamics, as the existing seat allocation is largely based on the 1971 Census.
- Constitutional Background
- Article 81: This article governs the composition of the House of the People (Lok Sabha). The new Bill seeks to amend this article to accommodate the increased numbers.
- The 2026 Freeze: Under the 84th Amendment Act (2001), the number of seats in the Lok Sabha was frozen until 2026. The current Bill marks the first formal legislative step to address the seat allocation post-expiry of this freeze.
- New Parliament House: The infrastructure of the newly inaugurated Parliament House already accounts for this expansion, with the Lok Sabha chamber designed to seat up to 888 members.
- Key Objectives and Implications: The expansion aims to ensure that the ratio between the number of seats and the population of each State remains uniform across the country.
- Enhanced Outreach: More MPs per capita are expected to improve the "representative-to-citizen" ratio, facilitating better grievance redressal and localized development.
- Delimitation Linkage: The implementation of this Bill will be closely tied to a fresh Delimitation Exercise, which will redefine the boundaries of territorial constituencies based on the latest census data.
| Read More: Delimitation |
