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Lok Sabha

The Lok Sabha, also known as the House of the People, is the lower house of Parliament of India which is bicameral, where the upper house is Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past-the-post system to represent their respective constituencies, and they hold their seats for five years or until the body is dissolved by the president of India on the advice of the Union Council of Ministers. The house meets in the Lok Sabha Chambers of the New Parliament House, New Delhi.

The maximum membership of the House allotted by the Constitution of India is 552 (Initially, in 1950, it was 500.) Currently, the house has 543 seats which are filled by the election of up to 543 elected members. Between 1952 and 2020, two additional members of the Anglo-Indian community were also nominated by the President of India on the advice of the Government of India, which was abolished in January 2020 by the One Hundred and Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of India. The new parliament has a seating capacity of 888 for Lok Sabha.

A total of 131 seats (24.03%) are reserved for representatives of Scheduled Castes (84) and Scheduled Tribes (47). The quorum for the House is 10% of the total membership. The Lok Sabha, unless sooner dissolved, continues to operate for five years from the date appointed for its first meeting. However, while a state of emergency in India is in operation, this period may be extended by Parliament of India by law or decree.

An exercise to redraw Lok Sabha constituencies' boundaries is carried out by the Boundary Delimitation Commission of India every decade based on the census of India, the last of which was conducted in 2011. This provision of the mandate of the commission was temporarily suspended between 1976 and 2001 following a constitutional amendment to incentivize the family planning program which was being implemented. The delimitation exercise earlier also included redistribution of seats among Indian states, based on demographic changes, but that has been frozen under the constitutional amendment of 1976.

The 18th Lok Sabha was elected in May 2024 and is the latest to date.

The Lok Sabha proceedings are televised live on channel Sansad TV, headquartered within the premises of Parliament. Provided by Wikipedia