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The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) has released a working paper proposing a targeted approach to the next delimitation exercise. Instead of relying solely on population, it recommends using multiple demographic and electoral indicators while broadly retaining the existing proportion of Lok Sabha seats among large States.

What are the Recommendations?

The EAC-PM paper suggests that the upcoming delimitation should move beyond a uniform population-based formula and adopt a multi-factor methodology to improve representational equity.

The study analysedLok Sabha election data (2009–2024) and found that constituency size alone does not adequately explain representation. It recommends that the Delimitation Commission consider five additional compositional features while deciding whether a constituency should be split:

• Urban population share
• Scheduled Caste (SC) population share
• Scheduled Tribe (ST) population share
• Linguistic polarisation
• Linguistic diversity

According to the paper, delimitation should be undertaken only after:

• A fresh booth rationalisation exercise,
• Publication of 2027 Census data, and
• Availability of gender-disaggregated electoral statistics to improve accuracy.

The proposed model also indicates that all major States could witness nearly a 50% increase in Lok Sabha seats while broadly preserving the existing inter-state proportion of representation.

What is Delimitation?

Delimitation is the process of redrawing the boundaries of Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assembly constituencies to ensure that each constituency represents a nearly equal population, thereby upholding the democratic principle of "one person, one vote, one value." It also involves the allocation of seats among States based on constitutional provisions.

Constitutional and Legal Framework

History of Delimitation

• India has constituted the Delimitation Commission four times—1952, 1963, 1973, and 2002.
• The 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1976 froze the allocation of Lok Sabha seats among States based on the 1971 Census to ensure that States successfully implementing population control measures were not disadvantaged through reduced parliamentary representation.
• The 84th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2001 extended this freeze until the first Census conducted after 2026. Consequently, while the 2002 Delimitation Commission redrew constituency boundaries using the 2001 Census, the inter-state allocation of Lok Sabha seats continues to be based on the 1971 Census.