Lok Sabha Rejects Delimitation Constitutional Amendment Linked to Women’s Reservation

On 17 April 2026, the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirty-First Amendment) Bill failed to secure the required special majority in the Lok Sabha and was voted down. Introduced alongside the Delimitation Bill and a Union Territories laws amendment, the package sought to recast the constitutional framework for future delimitation, allow Parliament to determine which published census would be used, raise the maximum size of the Lok Sabha, and alter the trigger connecting delimitation to implementation of women’s legislative reservation. Once the constitutional amendment failed, the two dependent bills became infructuous. The defeat was an unusually consequential failure of a government constitutional-amendment package in Parliament.