General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20266 min read

Next Indian general election

The next Indian general election is the parliamentary election, due in 2029, that will constitute the 19th Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's Parliament. Under Article 83 of the Constitution the Lok Sabha has a five-year term, and the Election Commission of India lists the house's strength as 543 elected seats plus 2 nominated members.¹ The previous house, the 17th Lok Sabha, saw its term expire on 16 June 2024 after dissolution on 5 June 2024, so the current house's term runs to 2029.²^•¹⁶

Key fact	Detail
Due date	2029, before the expiry of the 18th Lok Sabha's five-year term³
House to be elected	19th Lok Sabha⁴
Seats	543 elected seats plus 2 nominated members, unless delimitation changes the house's size¹
Women's reservation	The 2023 Act reserves one third of seats, but its application to 2029 depends on a completed census and delimitation⁵^•⁶
Delimitation bills	Failed to pass the Lok Sabha in April 2026; the delimitation proposal was withdrawn⁶
Census	Scheduled for 2026, with results expected the following year⁴
Electoral rolls	Special Intensive Revision ordered in 16 states and 3 union territories on 14 May 2026⁷

Timing and framework

The election must be held before the 18th Lok Sabha completes its five-year term. Elections to the Lok Sabha are conducted by the Election Commission of India, the constitutional authority that also administers elections to state legislatures and the offices of President and Vice President.⁸ Voting uses the first-past-the-post system in single-member constituencies, and a party or coalition needs 272 of 543 seats to command a majority.⁹ Recent general elections have been held in multiple phases over several weeks; the 2024 election ran over 43 days between the first and last poll day, in seven phases, with 979 million (97.9 crore) registered voters.¹⁰

Delimitation and women's reservation

The 2023 Act and its precondition. The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023 reserves one third of seats in the Lok Sabha and state legislatures for women, but it was kept in abeyance until seats are increased through a delimitation exercise following the next census.⁵ At its passage, the government stated the reservation would be implemented in the 2029 national elections after a new census and adjustment of constituencies.¹¹

The April 2026 bills. During a three-day special session beginning 16 April 2026, the government introduced three bills on delimitation, an expanded Lok Sabha, and the rollout of women's reservation.¹² The delimitation bill provided for a Delimitation Commission headed by a Supreme Court judge, with the Chief Election Commissioner and State Election Commissioners as members and powers equivalent to a civil court.⁵ Had it passed, the exercise would have increased the lower house from 543 seats to about 850 by the 2029 election.⁶

Failure in the Lok Sabha. The bills required approval by two thirds of lawmakers. After two days of debate, the legislation tied to the women's quota fell short of that threshold, and the government withdrew the delimitation proposal.⁶ Opposition parties had warned that redrawing boundaries on population data could shift political power toward faster-growing northern states and reduce the seat share of southern regions, and that the changes could benefit the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party; the government said the plan would include a uniform 50 percent increase in seats across all states, though critics noted the draft did not explicitly guarantee this.⁶ Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party described the exercise as "an attempt to change the electoral map of India."⁶

Outlook for 2029. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju has said that to implement women's reservation at the 2029 general election, delimitation must be undertaken at the earliest based on the latest published census figures, with the implementation methodology proposed under the Delimitation Bill 2026.¹³ PRS Legislative Research, however, notes that a delimitation exercise based on the 2027 census is unlikely to be completed before the 2029 election, which would mean the women's reservation does not apply to it.³ India Today's analysis similarly concludes that, since the 2023 Act ties reservation to delimitation, the new women MPs were always destined for a later house rather than the one elected in 2029.⁴

Electoral roll preparation

The Election Commission has begun revising the rolls that will be used. In exercise of its powers under Article 324 and Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, it ordered a Special Intensive Revision in 16 states and 3 union territories on 14 May 2026; every eligible elector whose enumeration form is received by the Electoral Registration Officer on or before 28 June 2026 is to be included in the draft electoral rolls.⁷ Separately, the Commission directed 17 states and union territories to conduct a Special Summary Revision with 1 January of the following year as the qualifying date, stating that the Electoral Registration Officer of each assembly constituency is responsible for ensuring that no eligible citizen is left out and no ineligible person remains on the roll.¹⁴

Simultaneous elections proposal

A separate change could alter the 2029 cycle's structure. The Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill, 2024 and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024, introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2024 and referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee chaired by P. P. Chaudhary, would align elections to the Lok Sabha and all state and union territory assemblies every five years.¹⁰ Under the bill, the President would issue a notification on the date of the first sitting of the Lok Sabha after a general election, and assemblies constituted after that date would expire with the Lok Sabha's term; a house dissolved early would be re-elected only for the remainder of the five-year term.¹⁰ PRS's illustrative timeline assumes the President notifies adoption of simultaneous elections in June 2029, so that the first such combined election would be held around June 2034.¹⁰

Political context after 2024

The 2024 election produced the first hung outcome of the Modi era: the Bharatiya Janata Party won 240 seats, 63 fewer than in 2019, and the National Democratic Alliance won 293 seats against 234 for the opposition INDIA coalition, returning the BJP to office in coalition.¹⁵ The BJP's vote share fell by less than one percentage point, from 37.3 percent to 36.6 percent, with losses concentrated in the Hindi heartland offset by gains in eastern and southern states.¹⁵ The Congress party's vote share rose to 21.2 percent from 19.4 percent, and Rahul Gandhi became Leader of the Opposition in the 18th Lok Sabha.¹⁵ The delimitation and reservation disputes of 2026 grew directly out of this configuration, with opposition parties framing boundary redrawing as a threat to southern states and to their own position ahead of the 2029 contest.⁶

References

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026