New Delhi: As the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK)-led government in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday (August 12) passed a resolution against the Union government’s proposed delimitation bill, the opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) supported it, reported The Telegraph.

DMK’s support for resolution brought by chief minister C. Joseph Vijay’s government is a significant development and a setback to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in the Centre. DMK’s support for the resolution in the assembly came amid a shadow over DMK’s support for the Centre’s plans for a renewed delimitation bill push.

The special resolution passed in the Tamil Nadu assembly urges the BJP-led Union government to freeze the total number of Lok Sabha seats at the existing 543 and retain the current ratio of Lok Sabha-Rajya Sabha seats at 2.2:1.

The Tamil Nadu resolution seeks the implementation of the 33% women’s quota in the Lok Sabha polls in 2029 based on the existing 543 seats.

“The existing number of seats in the Lok Sabha allocated to the States should be made permanent at the current level, i.e. proportional distribution among the states,” says the resolution. It adds that the same should apply to Assembly elections as well.

In the Tamil Nadu assembly, leader of the opposition Udhayanidhi Stalin said that the DMK supported the resolution. He recalled the efforts by former chief minister and his father M.K. Stalin to oppose and contribute to the defeat of the bill brought by the Union government in Parliament in April.

“The DMK was the first to point out the great danger if delimitation was done on the basis of the current census,” said Udhayanidhi.

The DMK’s support for the resolution comes amid its strained ties with the TVK. Just days back, LoP Udhayanidhi was arrested by the TVK government over some alleged objectionable comments, which had started a bitter battle between the ruling party and the DMK.

DMK had also boycotted a meeting of MPs from Tamil Nadu convened by chief minister Vijay over the delimitation issue on August 8.

The DMK’s stand on the Bill has been under spotlight after the party’s recent exit from the INDIA bloc, following the Congress’s alliance with the TVK which emerged as the single-largest party in the recently-concluded Tamil Nadu assembly elections and formed the government with the help of Congress and other parties.

In April, for the first time in 12 years, the Narendra Modi government had failed to get the constitutional amendment Bill passed.

A united opposition had defeated the constitutional amendment Bill that sought to increase the strength of the Lok Sabha to 850 seats to “operationalise” women’s reservation.

The Wire has reported that the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, along with its accompanying delimitation Bill, sought to bring in large-scale changes that would not just increase the strength of the Lok Sabha to 850 but result in a fundamentally altered parliamentary arithmetic and change Union-state relations.

At the time, the DMK, which was in alliance with Congress and also a part of the INDIA bloc, had put up a scathing opposition to the bill.

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