Delimitation UPSC relevant
Delimitation is the readjustment of Lok Sabha and Assembly seat allocations and constituency boundaries after each census, mandated by Articles 81, 82 and 170 of the Constitution and carried out by a Delimitation Commission.
The 84th Amendment froze inter-state seat allocation (on 1971 population) until the first census taken after 2026 — a threshold Census 2027, with its March 1, 2027 reference date, is positioned to cross. The 106th Amendment (2023) further ties the one-third women's reservation to delimitation after the first census following its commencement. A Delimitation Bill introduced in Lok Sabha on April 16, 2026 proposed instead basing the exercise on the 2011 Census and raising the Lok Sabha cap from 550 to 850 seats; PRS's tracker lists it as lapsing the next day, so the census-delimitation linkage remains politically unsettled — and is a major reason Census 2027 is so consequential.