As seat redistribution shifts power to northern States and women’s quotas hinge on boundary changes, the reform push will reshape representation and the federal balance

Indian parliament, as it has been since independence, is about to change radically. Presently, it has 545 Lok Sabha seats and reservation of seats for the Scheduled Castes and schedule tribes. The proposed bills being tabled in parliament will not only change the number of seats in Lok Sabha but will also give women 33 per cent reservation, a long-standing demand to bring about gender parity in governance.

As the Union government’s move to introduce three Bills on delimitation and women’s reservation, there is considerable resistance from the Opposition and regional parties from the South, that feel that it would shift the political........

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