Government sources say a three-day special session on 24–25 November will carry the 131st Amendment and the Delimitation Bill, with a 15–18 vote cushion and the House growing from 543 seats to 850. In April I asked for four things before any vote. None of them has been published. This is the scorecard, the arithmetic behind that cushion, and one small suggestion: put the seat formula in an open table before the session is called, so that women's reservation stops being hostage to a number nobody outside the room can check.
For two days now the numbers have been in the air, not on paper. The Home Minister is reported to have told a group of journalists informally on 12 November that a three-day special session would be called and the Bills passed by a margin of 15 to 18 votes. By the evening of 13 November, officials were pointing to 24 or 25 November, with no summons issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat and nothing notified (Gandhi News, 13 November 2026). Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's answer was plain: "They have not intimated the rest of us." (New Indian Express, 13 November 2026)
In April, in a post called Why Tamil Nadu Is Protesting, I set out four things that should happen before any vote. I wrote then:
"People want the draft text, the mathematical formula, and the methodology on the table before any vote."
Seven months later, this is how the four demands stand.
| What I asked for in April | Where it stands on 13 November |
|---|---|
| The draft text, in public, before the vote | Not published |
| The seat formula, state by state | Not settled; a flat 50% rise for every state is only "among the formulations under consideration" (Free Press Journal, 13 November 2026) |
| An all-party meeting before introduction | The Congress has asked for one; "the government has not agreed to one" (Gandhi News) |
| Women's reservation freed from the delimitation timetable | Still bundled with expansion |
The arithmetic is being briefed, not tabled. As of 13 November the NDA had 320 members in the Lok Sabha and 155 in the Rajya Sabha, 40 short of the 360 needed for two-thirds in the Lower House, according to BJP sources quoted by the Indian Express. On 17 April the same package fell 298 to 230 (ETV Bharat, 13 November 2026). If the Samajwadi Party abstains, the paper arithmetic puts the two-thirds mark at 336 on an effective strength of 503 — and still leaves the NDA 16 short. A cushion of 15 to 18 votes is, in other words, a cushion of hope.
Two things get buried under the counting. The first is the South. If seats were simply redistributed at today's strength, Tamil Nadu would fall from 39 to 32 and Kerala from 20 to 15, while Uttar Pradesh rose from 80 to 89 and Bihar from 40 to 46 (Business Standard, 13 November 2026). A flat 50 per cent rise for every state would hold the present ratios, but it needs changes to Articles 81 and 82, and no text says it yet. The second is women. One-third of this House remains a promise waiting on a formula. As Congress MP Anurag Sharma asked the obvious question: since the census is not done, why not reserve a third of the existing 543?
So I would suggest something small and unglamorous before the session is called. Publish one open table. One row per state; one column for the 1971 share, one for the 2011 population, and one for the seats each formula produces. Release it with the working shown, so that a college in Madurai and a reporter in Patna reach the same answer from the same sheet. Then the vote can be about fairness, which is an argument worth having, instead of about numbers nobody outside the room can check.
Show us the formula first, and I will happily argue about the merits. Ask us to trust a margin instead, and April's answer stands.
With regards,
Hemen Parekh
www.Iam-Immortal.ai / www.IndiaAGI.ai / www.YourContentCreator.in
14 Nov 2026
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