The term Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill is ambiguous, as two distinct proposals have been referred to by this number in recent years. The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2025 proposed to include the Union Territory of Chandigarh under Article 240 of the Constitution, granting the President power to make regulations for its governance. However, the more comprehensive and recent proposal is the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, a landmark legislative proposal designed to overhaul the composition of the Indian Parliament and the process of redrawing electoral boundaries.
The Bill was created to address the significant population growth in India since the 1971 Census, which has been the basis for seat allocation, and to enable the immediate implementation of women's reservation. It proposes to increase the strength of the Lok Sabha from the existing 543 members to a maximum of 850 members, comprising 815 from States and 35 from Union Territories. The Bill specifically targets Articles 81, 82, and 334A of the Constitution.
To facilitate a fresh delimitation exercise, the Bill seeks to amend Article 82 by deleting the third proviso, which mandated that the next readjustment of seats would only occur after the first Census conducted after the year 2026. This change allows for delimitation to be carried out using the latest available census data, effectively removing the freeze based on the 1971 Census. Furthermore, it amends Article 334A to allow the one-third reservation for women to take effect immediately after the delimitation, bypassing the delay originally stipulated in the 106th Amendment Act of 2023. The Bill is closely connected to the proposed Delimitation Bill, 2026, which establishes the framework for the Delimitation Commission.