Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, Shamika Ravi’s recent article reveals that the Modi administration intends to pursue its formula for seat expansion-delimitation-women’s reservation despite widespread criticism. Ravi states that once the ongoing Census results are published, a Delimitation Commission will redraw boundaries to provide 815 electoral constituencies, 33 percent of which will be reserved for women. The Modi administration’s first attempt at seat expansion and delimitation was under cover of women’s reservation through the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill. That attempt was defeated at the Special Parliamentary Session on April 16-17, 2026, primarily due to the united Opposition’s recognition of the danger that fresh delimitation might pose and secondarily due to the fact that women’s reservation has nothing to do with population counts – if it did it would be 49% instead of 33 – and therefore has no link to seat expansion or delimitation.Clearly this point, which is stressed by women’s groups across the country, is unacceptable to the Modi administration. Ravi’s article not only airbrushes the historic April defeat from public (aka media) memory, it also reveals that the Modi administration will support women’s reservation only through creation of 50% additional seats. In other words, the prime minister’s commitment is not to women’s right to representation, it is about giving men priority in the existing 543 seats. At the same time, the Modi administration might seek deniability of this fact by agreeing to the demand of women’s groups, backed by many Members of Parliament (MPs), to delink women’s reservation from the Census and delimitation. Deleting references to the latter in the 106th Constitutional Amendment 2023, which provided for women’s reservation, will not disturb the Modi administration’s goal of seat expansion or delimitation: news reports indicate that the Union Law Ministry will soon introduce a revised Delimitation Bill in parliament, since the 2001 freeze on seat expansion expires this year. In other words, the three issues that were bundled together in April might now be presented as two or three separate pieces of legislation, staggered from now through to next spring or summer. Women’s reservationA draft constitutional amendment deleting all references to the Census and delimitation in the 106th amendment and Articles 334A(1) and 334A(3) might be the first piece of legislation, given that most opposition MPs will vote for it. But this raises the question of how the first 33% women’s seats are to be identified (after that the seats rotate). If it is not by a Delimitation Commission, then will it be by the Election Commission of India (ECI)? Two alternative methods have been suggested: (a) to choose women’s seats by lottery or (b) to allot every third seat, as in the panchayat system. Some women’s groups have suggested another method: to set up State Committees in which 33% would be women; MPs and MLAs would be represented according to their parties’ vote shares; decisions would be by majority vote and put in the public domain for feedback. Such a structure would restore voters’ participation in a democratic process that has lapsed over the decades. For opposition parties, Ravi’s article highlights a further element in the BJP’s strategy to consolidate a women’s vote. Urban women can be wooed through women’s canteen schemes and urban self-help-group networks under the National Urban Livelihoods Mission, she says; urban constituencies can comprise half the population size of rural constituencies. In other words, taxpayer funds will be used to cultivate an urban woman voter for the BJP, just as Union welfare programmes were used to cultivate a rural women’s voter base. Control over urban centres is control over the economic lifeline of the country. Also read: A New How-To for Delimitation That Balances Fairness and Works PoliticallyDelimitationThe Modi administration might now bring delimitation as a stand-alone legislation to be followed by a Constitutional amendment for seat expansion, given that the attempt to tag the two was defeated in April. A stand-alone Delimitation Bill requires a simple majority to pass. But any change in seat numbers requires a Constitutional amendment passed by a two-thirds majority. This raises the further question of time frame. If a Delimitation Commission determines the number of legislative seats based on the 2026-2027 Census results, a consequent Constitutional amendment would run too close to the 2029 general election for comfort.The other option is to use the 2011 Census instead of waiting for the 2026-2027 Census to be completed. The April draft constitutional amendment and Delimitation Bill left it open to parliament to decide which Census to use, when the norm has been to use the latest Census. A departure from the norm might also be a violation of the UN rules on elections, to which India is a signatory. They prescribe using the latest Census data. Nevertheless, this option might be revived. It benefits the Modi administration’s push on delimitation, which is the third prong of its strategy to remake the electoral map of India. The first prong is the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, whose excesses have been minutely documented but not remedied by either the ECI or courts. The second prong seeks to alter India’s demography by suggesting that increase in minority populations is due to illegal immigration. The drive to identify, detain and deport cross-border migrants began with the National Register of Citizens. It will be carried forward by a new Committee to enquire into ‘unnatural’ demographic change. With a one-year term, its findings are timed to coincide with analysis of the ongoing Census’ data before they are published. The Census Commissioner is a member of the Committee, as is Ms. Ravi; the Joint Secretary (Foreigners-I) of the Ministry of Home Affairs will be member-secretary. The risk of Census data being misrepresented is high.Communal and political gerrymanderingJudging by recent delimitations, the BJP’s redrawn electoral map will divide areas of relative minority strength to make minority votes insignificant; the same will be done to areas of opposition parties’ strength. It might even be done to areas of Dalit and Adivasi concentration, depending on the political loyalties of their residents. For example, Jammu and Kashmir’s 2022 Delimitation Commission divided Poonch and Muslim-majority parts of Rajouri from the Jammu constituency, adding them to Kashmir’s Anantnag seat. The redrawing ignored physical features and created administrative, transport, communications, and public obstacles. The Pir Panjal mountain range separates Poonch-Rajouri from Anantnag, with the seasonal Mughal Road providing the only connectivity. The sole outcome was to strengthen Jammu’s Hindu majority.Southward extension of the Pir Panjal range, seen from Kathua on a clear morning. Credit: RIDH-1, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsThe delimitation of assembly seats was even more troubling. The Commission carved new constituencies with vastly differing population sizes – for example, the tiny Hindu-majority Padder-Nagseni and Shri Mata Vaishno Devi are demographically between a quarter and a fifth the size of Muslim-majority constituencies such as Dooru and Surankote. All six of Jammu’s new constituencies are Hindu-majority. Further, Muslim-majority Kishtwar was turned Hindu-majority by adding areas from the former Inderwal constituency. Assam’s delimitation, as detailed in The Wire, Scroll and Reporters’ Collective, followed an even more intensive pattern of communal gerrymandering, and added political gerrymandering. The newly-carved Kaziranga constituency, which clearly made neither geographic or administrative sense, appears to have been created chiefly to deny the Congress a seat that it had won repeatedly.Also read: The Delimitation of Assam Makes No Geographical Sense And Permanently Divides PeopleSeat expansion and States’ rightsIt is nobody’s case that legislative seats should not be expanded. Given the burden that MPs and MLAs face due to population increase, most legislators favour seat expansion. The question is how much and by what criteria? How far can the Lok Sabha expand while retaining room for serious discussion? Surely not more than 650-700? One must bear in mind too that any increase in seats over the current 543 will require longer parliamentary sittings, with the number of days increased in proportion to the number of seats added. The second question concerns states’ rights. India’s demography has changed significantly since the freeze on delimitation 50 years ago. If a fresh exercise is based chiefly on population growth, more populous States such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar will dominate parliament to a much greater extent than they already do, altering the federal balance and risking further erosion of States’ rights to devolution, law and order, or revenue share. It will also overturn the accrued policy wisdom on delimitation, which has taken demographic performance as an important element of the population criterion.In this context, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) proposal to freeze the ratio of states’ shares to total seats at the current level is the simplest way of allaying the concerns of the less populous States. It will also avoid the brewing north-south divide. If stated in a Schedule, as Union home minister Amit Shah suggested in April, it should be safeguarded by inclusion in the group of Schedules that can only be altered by Constitutional amendment. Opposition optionsIt would be a mistake to accept the delinking of women’s reservation from the Census and delimitation as a victory, since that would leave the allocation of seats to the ECI. In both the women reservation legislation and a Delimitation Bill, the issue of Committee/Commission composition and mandate is vitally important. The proposal by women’s groups mentioned above, to restore voter participation through elected representatives, can be a model for amendment to a Delimitation Bill too. Associate Members – comprising MPs and MLAs – are already provided for in successive Delimitation Acts. Adding their decision-making powers is easy.Countering the BJP’s three-pronged strategy requires concerted public resistance. The steps listed above might stem a part of the tide that is engulfing us. But even they are achievable only if the opposition parties unite.Radha Kumar is a writer and policy analyst.