Overview
- The DMK has told the Centre it will only consider backing a delimitation amendment if three demands are met: extend the current freeze on redistributing seats by 25 years, enact a 50% blanket increase in Lok Sabha seats for every state, and include a state‑wise schedule showing new seat counts.
- DMK leaders have publicly reiterated their opposition to delimitation even as party sources relay those conditions, and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay has convened the state's MPs to coordinate a unified response.
- The Centre has intensified outreach to opposition and breakaway MPs to assemble the two‑thirds majority required for a constitutional amendment, with Kiren Rijiju speaking to Rahul Gandhi and the prime minister scheduling meetings with NCPI and Shiv Sena defect MPs.
- Parliamentary manoeuvres are underway: the government has added rebel MPs since April but still falls short of the two‑thirds threshold and the Congress is preparing a three‑line whip to ensure its MPs are present for the debate next week.
- The dispute rests on a decades‑old freeze tied to census data and population growth patterns; lifting it could raise Lok Sabha seats to roughly 850, shifting representation toward faster‑growing states and reducing the relative voice and fiscal share of some southern states.