Topic 3 of 22
GS Paper 2 Delimitation & Parliamentary Reservation Politics Floor-Crossing, the Tenth Schedule and the Arithmetic of Constitutional Amendment

Thirty-seven Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs from four opposition parties have crossed over to the ruling side since April's defeat - the largest floor-crossing since the anti-defection law was enacted in 1985. The two-thirds mark keeps shrinking as the government keeps counting.

| | Source: Both - Hindu + IE | Topic 3 of 22

Summary

The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, which would expand the Lok Sabha to 850 seats and trigger delimitation, fell short of the required two-thirds majority in April 2026. Since then, 20 Trinamool Congress MPs and 6 Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs have defected to the NDA, part of a reported total of 37 opposition MPs switching sides across four parties.

With the Monsoon Session beginning July 20, the government is closing the gap to the two-thirds threshold through defections and negotiations with parties like the NCP(SP), rather than through a change in the underlying numbers that defeated the Bill in April.

WHY IN NEWS FOR UPSC & STATE PCS

Ahead of Parliament's Monsoon Session starting July 20, the NDA is working to secure the two-thirds majority needed to pass the delimitation-linked Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, which was defeated in April 2026, partly through a wave of opposition MP defections and partly through outreach to fence-sitting parties such as the NCP(SP).

Standard News

When Defection Does the Work Persuasion Could Not

The text says one thing; the arithmetic is doing another. Article 368 requires a special majority - two-thirds of members present and voting - to amend the Constitution. That threshold exists precisely to force broad consensus on structural changes. What is happening in the run-up to the Monsoon Session tests how much that requirement actually constrains a government once floor-crossing enters the picture.

The Gap That Closed Without a Single Vote Changing In April 2026, the Constitution

(131st Amendment) Bill fell in the Lok Sabha, securing 298 votes against a two-thirds mark of 352 out of 528 MPs present. That defeat reflected the Opposition's actual numerical strength at the time. Since then, according to reporting, 37 Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs from four anti-BJP parties have defected to the ruling side - the largest floor-crossing to the Treasury benches since the anti-defection law was enacted in 1985.

Twenty of those were Trinamool Congress MPs, six were Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs, in the Lok Sabha alone. None of this reflects a single voter's mind changing or a single argument winning anyone over on the substance of delimitation.

It reflects the Tenth Schedule's own design: a defection survives disqualification proceedings once it clears a two-thirds threshold within the original legislative party, converting individual floor-crossing into legally protected "merger."

What the Tenth Schedule Was Built to Stop and What It Cannot

The anti-defection law was written to prevent exactly the kind of horse-trading that undid governments in the 1960s and 70s - but its merger clause, which shields a defection once it crosses the two-thirds mark within a party's own legislative wing, creates a structural loophole rather than closing one.

A government short of the votes needed to amend the Constitution can, in principle, get there not by building consensus with rival parties but by inducing enough defections within rival parties to trigger the merger exemption.

The Lok Sabha's two-thirds mark itself has shifted with these events - from 352 in April to 360 today, as the House's total strength moved with vacancies and defections. That a constitutionally mandated threshold designed to be hard to move is, in practice, this dynamic is the real story sitting underneath the parliamentary-arithmetic headlines.

For the exam, this is not simply a "delimitation politics" story. It is a live test of how the special-majority requirement under Article 368 interacts with the Tenth Schedule's merger provision - and whether a constitutional safeguard against easy amendment can be worked around through party-level attrition rather than through the cross-party persuasion the special majority was designed to demand.

Quick Facts

  • The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill proposes raising the Lok Sabha's maximum strength to 850 seats. In April 2026, the Bill secured only 298 votes against the required two-thirds majority of 352 out of 528 MPs who voted.

    Twenty Trinamool Congress MPs and six Shiv Sena (UBT) MPs have since defected to the NDA. With current Lok Sabha strength at 540, the two-thirds mark now stands at 360. The Bill is constitutionally linked to implementing the 106th Amendment's 33% women's reservation, targeted for the 2029 Lok Sabha election.

Beyond The Headlines
GS Paper 2 Floor-Crossing, the Tenth Schedule and the Arithmetic of Constitutional Amendment

Connect the dots for your UPSC preparation.

Standard news covers the event. Log in to read our comprehensive analysis and uncover the hidden constitutional, structural, and ethical dimensions of this topic:

1

The full breakdown of how the Tenth Schedule's two-thirds "merger" exemption legally shelters mass defections from disqualification

2

The case study connecting this to the historical pattern of merger-route defections that toppled state governments in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra

3

The complete way-forward section on structural reforms proposed to close the merger loophole in the anti-defection law

4

The Mains-ready answer framework linking floor-crossing arithmetic to the broader constitutional debate on Article 368's special-majority safeguard

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Article 82 Delimitation Commission Constitution 131st Amendment Bill Anti-Defection Law Tenth Schedule Article 368 Special Majority Women's Reservation Act 2023

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