NEW DELHI: Former President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday pitched for raising the number of Lok Sabha constituencies to 1,000 from the existing 543 and for a corresponding increase in Rajya Sabha’s strength, arguing that India has a “disproportionately large size” of electorate for elected representatives.
Delivering the second Atal Vihari Vajpayee memorial lecture organised by India Foundation here, he said the last time the strength of Lok Sabha was revised was in 1977 which, he noted, was based on the 1971 census that put the total population at 55 crore.
The population since then has more than doubled, and there is a “strong case” to remove the freeze in the delimitation exercise. It should be ideally increased to 1,000, he added. (AGENCIES)
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