Introduction
There’s never a dull day in Indian domestic politics—but even by those standards, the past fortnight has been particularly frenetic. Amidst the usual chatter on voter turnout and state election predictions, an unexpected political storm gathered around three constitutional amendments proposed in Parliament. Among other things, the amendments sought to increase the size of the Lok Sabha to 840 to solve the apportionment problem. However, if the end goal is better functioning of Parliament, this does little to address the issue. Expanding the Lok Sabha may soften the political problem of apportionment, but it does not solve and may actually worsen the institutional problem of Parliament’s declining effectiveness.
Background
The 131st Amendment Bill, along with the two enabling pieces of legislation, was ostensibly intended to expedite the 33% reservation for women, which was passed in 2023. The amendments mainly concerned the use of the 2011 census data, the composition of the delimitation commission, and delimitation for the Union Territories. The bills, coming in the backdrop of several state elections, were seen as an affront to federalism and were defeated.
Is Bigger always Better?
While the issue of delimitation and women’s reservation will be discussed in greater detail in the coming days, an interesting idea has been the proposal to increase the size of the Lok Sabha from the current 543 to 850 seats.
The accepted wisdom on this is that, as the population increases, we should have more seats so that the country is represented in line with the one-person-one-vote, one-value principle. In a democracy, every MP should represent roughly the same number of people. In the current [scenario] (https://srajagopalan.substack.com/p/demography-delimitation-and-democracy), an MP from UP/Bihar represents more people than an MP from Kerala. On average, an MP in India represents 2.5 million people, which is 2-3 times as many as in other countries. So yes, there is a representation imbalance. To correct this, a proposal to expand the Lok Sabha was made.
The argument hinges on the view that larger constituency sizes would impede an MP’s ability to serve their constituents. However, this argument needs a rethink. A closer look at the job description of a Member of Parliament tells us a different story: The Indian Parliament, with both Houses, provides the framework, or edifice, for the country’s laws. In addition to lawmaking and keeping the government accountable, it also performs the crucial function of budgetary oversight. Therefore, the job of a parliamentarian, as originally envisaged, is not constrained by the number of people they represent. The state legislatures perform the same function within the ambit of each state Therefore, contrary to popular belief, MPs are not supposed to solve local issues of water, schools and other such, These belong completely in the ambit of local governments, whose job is a service delivery function- that of providing infrastructure of drainage, roads, water, etc.- what we as citizens see as the everyday interface.
The Rowing and Steering Function principles from Osborne and Plastrik’s Banishing Bureaucracy provide further support for this. It states that in a government, the parliament and the state legislatures play the steering role, which is to set the rules of the game and ensure accountability, while the local governments play the role of implementing these rules, in other words, the rowing functions.
Therefore, the questions of scale and the population-to-MP ratio are relevant to service-delivery functions, such as those carried out by local governments. By focusing on size, we will overlook a more important goal: making the parliament function optimally. Without diminishing the importance of representation, it is important to strike a balance between the principles of representation and the effective functioning of Parliament.
Also, consider this: The average annual sitting days of the Indian Parliament have been dwindling since the first. This is about 2 times lower than in other democracies like the US, the UK, or Australia. Currently, an MP in India has far fewer opportunities to ask questions (<1 chance to ask an oral, starred question). If this is the problem with a 543-seat Parliament, one can only imagine what it would be for an 850-seat Parliament.
With this in mind, it is clear that the argument about the number of people is not really central to ensuring the smooth functioning of the parliament. In addition, [this] (https://prsindia.org/articles-by-prs-team/implications-of-increasing-the-size-of-the-lok-sabha) piece explains other problems with expanding the Lok Sabha.
##So, what can be done to make the Parliament more effective? The simple answer is to have parliamentarians focus on their core functions. Constituency development is the job of the corporators and local governments- leave it to them. The focus should be on making Parliament work better: Increase the number of sitting days Strengthen Question Hour and committee scrutiny Rethink voice votes and improve transparency in decision-making Revisit the anti-defection law to allow genuine debate Scrap MPLADS- MP Local Area Development Scheme- this goes against everything an MP should do. We are better served if these funds are transferred to local governments, where service delivery actually happens The Lok Sabha, being the people’s house, should be appropriately represented, no doubt. But pursuing this at the cost of effective working will go against the spirit of the constitution. The coming weeks and months will surely throw up other options. Watch this space for more!