Mallikarjun Kharge writes to PM Modi, seeks all-party meet on revised delimitation bill

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has written to PM Narendra Modi, demanding an all-party meeting on the revised 131st Constitutional Amendment Bill. The draft bill proposes increasing Lok Sabha seats to 850 to operationalize the women's quota by 2029

New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over reports that the government is now planning to reintroduce a Constitution amendment bill that would involve delimitation, urging him to convene an all-party meeting to discuss the revised proposals.

In his letter to the PM, Kharge said during March and April, he had been writing to Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju, requesting that the Union government convene an all-party meeting to discuss its proposals regarding delimitation, etc.

---

“Unfortunately, these requests had not been accepted. The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, then failed to secure the required 2/3 majority in Lok Sabha on 17 April, 2026 by a clear margin,” he said.

“I have been reading in media reports that the Union Government now proposes to reintroduce a revised (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 during the forthcoming Monsoon Session of Parliament. I would, once again, request you to convene an all-party meeting to discuss the government’s revised proposals on delimitation, etc., and give us adequate time to study them in detail before they are introduced in Parliament,” Kharge said.

The Congress chief’s letter comes days after it emerged that the government is learnt to be working on multiple formulations to increase the number of Lok Sabha seats for all states by 50 per cent to assuage the concerns of southern states, as it seeks to operationalise a fresh draft of the Constitution amendment bill on women’s quota law.

The draft is being readied keeping in mind the concerns of the southern states that a population-based delimitation exercise would shrink their political power in the Lok Sabha.

The first Bill failed to clear the Lok Sabha test on April 17, as the government could not muster the two-thirds majority required to pass it.

The Modi government had said that it wanted to get the Bill passed as it wanted to advance the enforcement of the women reservation law.

As of now, the ruling NDA has around 300 MPs in the Lok Sabha with three vacancies. It needs 360 votes to achieve the two-thirds mark.

Under the current law, reservation for women would not be enforceable before 2034, as the process is tied to the completion of the delimitation exercise post the 2027 Census.

To implement it from the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, changes were needed in the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, or women’s reservation law.

According to the government’s plan, Lok Sabha seats will be increased to a maximum of 850 from the current 543 to “operationalise” the women’s quota law before the 2029 parliamentary polls following a delimitation exercise to be carried out based on the last published census.