Shashi Tharoor writes: Why an 850-seat Lok Sabha threatens Indian democracy

With an oversized Parliament, a vast majority of MPs will never get to ask a question, initiate a private member's bill, or participate in a substantive debate during their entire five-year tenure. (Source: PTI) 6 min readJul 29, 2026 03:20 PM IST First published on: Jul 29, 2026 at 03:20 PM IST The government’s seeming determination to proceed with a revised delimitation that drastically increases the size of the Lok Sabha to 824 or 850 seats marks a disastrous watershed in India’s institutional architecture. The underlying justification offered by the government is purely mathematical: The size of the Lower House cannot remain frozen at the 543-seat limit established in 1972, since when the nation’s population has more than doubled. Yet, beneath this seemingly democratic argument lies a