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Fact checkParliament

Delimitation Bill 'needs 361 votes': by the Constitution's own rule, the figure is 360 if all 540 members vote

Government sources and our own report said a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha works out to 361 votes. Article 368 asks for 'not less than' two-thirds, and the April 17 count used exact two-thirds, so the number is one too high.

From the editorial deskEdited by Puneet PanesarPublished

The claim

With 543 seats and three vacancies, the Delimitation Bill's constitutional amendment needs 361 votes in the Lok Sabha for a two-thirds majority.

Claim by: Government sources, as reported on November 12, 2026
Seen on: News reports of the plan for a special Session, November 12, 2026, first seen November 12, 2026

Verdict: Mostly true

  1. True
  2. Mostly true
  3. Misleading
  4. False

What we found

The figure is almost right but off by one. Reports on November 12 quoted government sources as saying the Delimitation Bill’s constitutional amendment needs 361 votes in the 543-member Lok Sabha, where three seats are vacant. That would be two-thirds if the rule were “more than two-thirds”. The Constitution’s rule is “not less than two-thirds” of members present and voting, which on 540 members voting is exactly 360.

The difference does not change the politics, since the government still has to find the votes it lacked in April. It matters because the threshold is quoted as a fixed number when it moves with attendance.

The evidence

What Article 368 says

Article 368(2) requires a Bill to be passed in each House “by a majority of the total membership of that House” and “by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of that House present and voting”. Both tests apply together. The first is met by 271 votes on a House of 540. The second is the one that matters here.

The arithmetic

With 543 seats and three vacancies, the House has 540 members. Two-thirds of 540 is 360.0, so 360 votes are not less than two-thirds. 361 would be needed only if the rule said “more than two-thirds”. If fewer members vote, the figure falls: on 528 voting it is 352, and on 500 voting it is 334.

How April 17 was counted

On April 17, 2026, the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill got 298 votes for and 230 against, with 528 members voting, according to the result announced by Speaker Om Birla in the House. The majority required was given as 352, which is exactly two-thirds of 528. The same method applied to a full House of 540 gives 360.

Where the claim stands, and the Opposition’s counter

Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said the amendment fell short “by over 50 votes” in April. That checks out: 352 minus 298 is 54. His account of what Home Minister Amit Shah told journalists, a margin of 15 to 18 votes, is his claim. Reports of the government’s own estimate differ, 15 to 16 in one and 15 to 18 in another, and none states the base it is measured from, so the real margin depends on how many members attend and whether anyone abstains.

Why this claim spread

A single threshold is easy to repeat, and 361 appears as the figure in more than one report of the proposed special Session. The three vacancies make the sum look more complicated than it is. The reports we read give the figure without the working. The point to take from the check is that a two-thirds vote is counted among members present and voting, so absences help whoever is short.

The documents