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Two days before a special session of Parliament, the Union government shared three bills with MPs. If passed, they would lead to political constituencies being redrawn on the basis of population data from the 2011 census.

The Constitution 131st Amendment Bill proposes to increase the strength of the Lok Sabha to 850 from 543. This will be done by amending Article 82 of the Constitution to remove the provision that froze the number of Lok Sabha seats based on the 1971 census.

The bill also proposes to allow Parliament, based on simple majority, to decide which census will serve as the basis of delimitation. While the 2026 Delimitation Bill is silent about which census will be used, the government stated that it will be based on the “latest published census”. That would mean the enumeration exercise that took place in 2011. The move is expected to reduce representation of the southern states, which have a slower population growth.

According to the proposed amendment of the 2023 Women’s Reservation Act, constituencies in the Lok Sabha and the state...

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