India, April 16 -- In 2026, no one in their right mind can or will really oppose reserving seats for women in Parliament and state assemblies; women account for around half the population, and the plan to reserve a third of the seats in legislatures for them seems only fair (even if it seems inequitable; ideally, it should be half). In India, the Delimitation Commission usually decides which seats are to be reserved. For instance, the last Delimitation Commission reserved seats for Scheduled Castes, although this did not increase the overall number of seats. That commission also redrew the boundaries of assembly and parliamentary constituencies to ensure some homogeneity (in voter numbers) based on the 2001 Census. The commission was not required to review allocation of seats to states in the Lok Sabha based on the 2001 Census because a Constitutional amendment had already put off this task till the first census published after 2026. The legislative push to fast-track the reservation for women in legislatures - which would have otherwise happened only in 2034; the 2023 law said the process would follow the census and delimitation - involves a Constitutional amendment bill raising the cap on seats in the Lok Sabha to 850 (from the current 550), and a bill on the creation and mandate of the next delimitation commission. The draft of the bill says the latest available census - in this case, the 2011 Census - will be the basis for the delimitation. While this might only mean a small change in the proportional representation of states, the fact that UP and Bihar - relatively less developed states that have not managed population growth as effectively as some others - gain 1.7% and 1.2% (in terms of proportional representation), and Tamil Nadu and Kerala (at the other end of the spectrum), lose 1.2% and 1%, is problematic. In private conversations with the media and political parties, the government has indicated that the number of seats will just be increased proportionately, by 50%, with no change in proportional representation, adding that this cannot be part of the amendment itself because the allocation has to be decided by the delimitation commission, and it (the government) cannot tell an independent statutory body what to do. "Trust us", is the message between the lines. "This is what the commission will eventually decide." It wouldn't matter if the Union government and states ruled by parties that are not part of the NDA enjoyed a relationship characterised by at least some amount of trust, but India's fiscal federalism compact has been under strain for at least a decade. This creates a quandary for opposition parties. They cannot oppose the amendment but have no option but to oppose the delimitation bill. But while they have the numbers to prevent the amendment from being passed (it requires two-thirds support), they do not have the strength to prevent the latter from being passed (it requires a simple majority). There is also a secondary quandary - one that the to-be-formed Delimitation Commission's members face: If the most important decision before them (on allocation) has already been made, as the government is suggesting, what is their role? The next three days will be interesting....