The Tamil Nadu assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution urging the Union government to freeze the number of Lok Sabha seats at 543 and ensure 33% women’s reservation in legislative bodies on the basis of this. The move that comes amidst efforts by the government to mobilise the required numbers in Parliament to legislate the constitution amendment bill that seeks to fast track the reservation, already cleared by both Houses of Parliament, by delinking it from the ongoing national census and subsequent delimitation, and instead prescribe an alternative mechanism for delimitation.
Political Context
The Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) government led by chief minister C Joseph Vijay was supported by the main opposition party in the state assembly, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), and its own allies such as the Left parties and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK). To be sure, if the government were to change the bill to incorporate this, some of the opposition to delimitation could vanish. “AIADMK rejects the resolution regarding delimitation brought forward by the TVK government for political reasons.
In April 2026, the Union government introduced The Constitutional (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, in Parliament to remove the 50 year freeze on delimitation and take up delimitation exercise based on the 2011 census and increase the number of Lok Sabha members from 550 to 850 but failed to garner the numbers required to pasws this. The main reason for this was a lack of clarity about how the delimitation exercise would be carried out; while the government said that each state would see its Lok Sabha seats increase by 50%, the bill itself was silent on this.
Vijay said if the aforementioned constitutional amendment bill is brought again, the parliamentary representation of southern states including Tamil Nadu which have successfully controlled population growth would be permanently affected. “We request all honourable members of this assembly, across all party lines, to pass this resolution unanimously,” he said. Leader of Opposition and DMK leader Udhayanidhi Stalin said the firm stance of the DMK was that under no circumstances should Tamil Nadu be affected in the name of the delimitation. We support only the resolution concerning the reservation for women,” he said.
