The Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (EAC-PM) has proposed increasing the strength of the Lok Sabha from 543 to 824 seats by selectively splitting 170 existing constituencies. The recommendation has been included in a working paper titled 'Constituency Size, Composition and the Case for Delimitation in India's Lok Sabha (2009-2024)', authored by EAC-PM member Dr Shamika Ravi and Mudit Kapoor of the Indian Statistical Institute. In April, the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, was defeated in the Lok Sabha.

The EAC advocates a "targeted delimitation" model rather than a uniform redistribution of seats across the country.

The key difference lies in the approach. Traditional delimitation exercises focus primarily on population, whereas the proposed model prioritises voter participation and representation by identifying constituencies where smaller electoral units are likely to improve turnout.

For Kerala, however, the outcome in terms of seat numbers is broadly similar to that envisaged under the Centre's delimitation proposal. Both models increase the state's Lok Sabha representation from 20 to 30 seats. The difference is in how those additional seats are created.

While the Delimitation Bill envisages a comprehensive redrawing of constituency boundaries, the EAC-PM paper proposes creating additional seats by splitting 10 existing constituencies into two, leaving the remaining 10 unchanged.

Kerala's current 20 Lok Sabha seats account for 3.68 per cent of the House's total strength of 543. Under the proposed 824-member Lok Sabha, the state's share would be 3.64 per cent. Under the Centre's earlier 816-seat model in the Delimitation Bill, Kerala's share would have been 3.67 per cent.

The paper identifies Kerala as one of the states likely to witness the largest gains in voter participation through constituency restructuring.

According to the authors, increasing Kerala's representation to 30 seats could result in an aggregate voter turnout increase of 8.64 percentage points(pp), placing the state among the top performers nationally in terms of expected voter mobilisation.

The report also highlights a significant gender dimension. Female voter participation is expected to rise by 10.3 pp, substantially higher than the increase projected among male voters with the proposed change.

The authors argue that women respond more strongly to structural changes in densely populated, urbanised and linguistically diverse constituencies. Such areas, they contend, contain significant untapped voting potential that can be unlocked by reducing constituency size.

Focus on voter turnout
The proposed national plan would create 824 constituencies by splitting 170 of the existing 543 Lok Sabha seats. This includes 59 two-way splits and 111 three-way splits, selected through what the authors describe as a "greedy algorithm" designed to maximise turnout gains.

Rather than relying solely on population, the model evaluates constituencies using a combination of demographic and linguistic indicators, including levels of urbanisation, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe populations, and language diversity.

The paper argues that larger constituencies tend to record lower voter participation, particularly among women. According to the authors, simply allocating additional seats based on population growth may not necessarily improve democratic participation. Instead, they recommend targeting constituencies where splitting is most likely to increase voter engagement.

The study estimates that the proposed restructuring could increase national voter turnout by between 0.3 and 2.3 percentage points, translating into an additional 9 million to 23 million voters participating in general elections.

Southern states’ representation
The proposal would substantially increase representation across southern India. Again, the seats proposed in the paper and the delimitation bill remain the same. Tamil Nadu's Lok Sabha seats would rise from 39 to 59, Telangana's from 17 to 26, Andhra Pradesh's from 25 to 38 and Karnataka's from 28 to 42.

Among the larger states, Uttar Pradesh would increase from 80 to 120 seats, Maharashtra from 48 to 72, Bihar from 40 to 60, Rajasthan from 25 to 38, Madhya Pradesh from 29 to 44 and Gujarat from 26 to 39.

Despite these increases, the authors argue that the overall balance of representation between regions would remain largely unchanged. Southern states would continue to account for about 23.6 per cent of Lok Sabha seats, while the Northern and Western states would hold approximately 45.6 per cent.

The delimitation debate arises because Lok Sabha seat allocations have remained frozen based on the 1971 Census, even as populations have grown unevenly across states. While each MP represented roughly 10.5 lakh people in 1971, population growth has widened disparities. Based on the 2011 Census, a Kerala MP now represents about 16.7 lakh people, compared to nearly 25 lakh in Uttar Pradesh, 19 lakh in Tamil Nadu and 23 lakh in Maharashtra, raising concerns about the constitutional principle of equal representation.

The paper has noted this discrepancy: the median Lok Sabha constituency had 18.2 lakh registered voters in 2024, while some of the largest constituencies had more than 32 lakh electors.