Two months ago, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government had failed to pass a contentious delimitation Bill – which it had linked to women’s reservation – largely due to a united opposition vote against it. In a dramatic turn of events, the parliament is staring at the prospect of an unprecedented defection-powered realignment that could help pass the once-defeated Bill.Defections in the Trinamool Congress, speculation on some MPs of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) camp jumping ship, the exit of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam from the INDIA bloc following the Congress ending its alliance with the party, and seven AAP MPs moving to the BJP, have come one after the other as the saffron party is looking to cobble support to reintroduce the same Bill. The bill which sought to expand the strength of the Lok Sabha to 850 seats, under the cover of “operationalising” women’s reservation, had been defeated in the Lok Sabha in April. The defeat was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first failure to get a constitutional amendment passed in the Lok Sabha.Why is parliament realigning?The implosion of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) following its defeat in the 2026 West Bengal assembly elections has not only fractured the fourth largest party in the Lok Sabha, and the second richest by electoral bond donations received, it has also resulted in 20 of its 28 MPs expressing the desire to form a separate faction that has announced its merger with the little known Nationalist Citizen Party of India (NCPI). This new unit has said that it will support the NDA government. However, Mamata Banerjee’s is not the only party that is likely to alter the numbers in parliament. Amid speculation of an imminent rift in the Shiv Sena (UBT), the party has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and asked him not to entertain any possible split, without hearing it first. Following the Tamil Nadu assembly elections, the Congress has ended its alliance with the DMK, which did not attend the INDIA bloc meeting earlier this month, raising questions on how the party will act in parliament. Meanwhile in the Rajya Sabha, seven Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MPs have switched to the BJP, while another three from the TMC have resigned – but have not yet joined any other party.In April, the government failed to get a two-third majority of members present and voting to get the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 passed and fell short by 54 votes. A re-engineered opposition camp will boost its efforts, if it brings the legislation again.How numbers standAs the numbers stand in the Lok Sabha today, the BJP-led NDA will need 362 MPs to get a two-thirds majority in a house of 543 members.The NDA has 293 members in the House. With the 20 MPs of the TMC defectors, the NDA’s tally could rise to 313. Still 49 short of a two-thirds majority, defections from other opposition parties can boost the NDA’s numbers.DOES NDA HAVE IT?NDA total strength293NDA + TMC defectors 313For two-thirds, NDA needs 49Shortfall if 6 Shiv Sena (UBT) defectors join NDA43Shortfall if NDA gets DMK’s support 21Amid speculation that the Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs are in touch with the Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena, in what is being referred to as “Operation Tiger”, the Shiv Sena (UBT)’s nine Lok Sabha MPs are also in the spotlight, with at least six reportedly ready to jump ship. If these MPs move to Shinde’s Shiv Sena or support the NDA in the house during voting on constitutional amendment, the government will still need 43 more votes to get it passed – if all members in the House are present and voting.However, the Congress’ break-up with the DMK has also put a spanner in the opposition camp. With 22 seats, the DMK has been a crucial part of the opposition INDIA bloc. The party has not yet said that it will support a new delimitation Bill, but has said that it wants to see its contents first. DMK general secretary and MP A. Raja said to The New Indian Express last week that the party remains “in principle against the delimitation bill in its present format” and that it will “not align with the BJP just because we walked out of the INDIA bloc.”DMK’s demand has been that the delimitation cannot be linked to current population figures, as southern states which have controlled their populations will end up losing out. Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has said this week that the BJP-led NDA, of which he is a part, will reintroduce the delimitation Bill by adding a point about a 50% proportional increase of seats across states soon.The DMK was one of the strongest opponents of the delimitation Bill that was brought in parliament ahead of the Tamil Nadu elections. It not only protested inside the House but also outside, with former Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin even burning copies of the Bill in protest, and asking people in the state to hoist black flags at home and in public places to protest.Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin burns a copy of the proposed Delimitation bill during a protest, in Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, Thursday, April 16, 2026. Photo: PTI.Even if the DMK supports the new delimitation Bill, the government will still be short of 21 MPs favouring its constitutional amendment. If we go by the numbers from the April vote in the house, the NDA got 298 votes in favour, of the total 528 MPs who were present and voting. The government needed 352, and fell short by 54 votes.To April’s tally of 298, is the 20 TMC defectors are added, the government’s votes rise to 318, and if six Shiv Sena MPs who are reportedly likely to jump ship are also added it becomes 324. The government still falls short of 28. Even in the scenario of all 22 DMK MPs voting for a reworked delimitation Bill that they find favourable, the government remains short of 6.However, in both cases, the gap is considerably less than April when the government fell short by 54 votes. The BJP now occupies a situation in which four MPs of the YSRCP, seven independents and other smaller parties can also be used to make further gains.What is clear, however, is that in the absence of a majority – something the BJP could not get in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections – and having been reduced to a minority ruling party, it will have to rely on generating ‘momentum’ through mass-defections successfully engineered across several parties, to project itself as the party smaller parties should necessarily seek to come close to. This would amount to seeking piecemeal support from broken opposition parties and smaller players to get a constitutional amendment passed.The Rajya Sabha pictureIn comparison to the long road in the Lok Sabha, in the Rajya Sabha the NDA is inching towards a majority. The BJP by itself too has 114 seats, its highest tally ever in the Rajya Sabha, with the second largest party in the upper House, the Congress, with only 30 seats The NDA’s tally can go up to 152 from 148, if the independent candidate it is backing in Jharkhand, Parimal Nathwani, manages to win the June 18 election. It could further go up to 155, just eight short of the two-thirds majority mark, as the BJP is set to win three seats in West Bengal, which have become vacant following the resignation of three TMC MPs last week, Sushmita Dev, Sukhendu Sekhar Ray and Prakash Chik Baraik.In comparison, with the DMK’s exit, and seven AAP MPs joining the BJP, the INDIA bloc has been reduced to 63.