Article 81 is a fundamental provision in the Constitution of India that defines the Composition of the House of the People (Lok Sabha), the lower house of India's Parliament. It was part of the original Constitution adopted in 1950, with the draft article being adopted on January 4, 1949. The provision was created to ensure that the Lok Sabha reflects the democratic principle of representation based on population, upholding the concept of "one person, one vote".
The article works by setting limits on the Lok Sabha's strength and mandating proportionality in seat allocation. Article 81(1) currently specifies that the House shall consist of not more than 530 members chosen by direct election from the States and not more than 20 members to represent the Union Territories. Article 81(2)(a) requires that the ratio between the number of seats allotted to each State and its population must be, as far as practicable, the same for all States. Furthermore, Article 81(2)(b) mandates that each State be divided into territorial constituencies so that the population-to-seat ratio is uniform throughout the State.
Article 81 is intrinsically connected to Article 82, which requires Parliament to enact a Delimitation Act after every Census to readjust the allocation of seats and the division of constituencies. The process of Delimitation is how the proportionality principle of Article 81 is implemented.
The provision has undergone significant changes to its application. The 42nd Amendment Act, 1976, froze the allocation of seats to States based on the 1971 Census figures. This freeze was extended until the first census after the year 2026 by the 84th Amendment Act, 2001, to avoid penalizing States that successfully implemented family planning policies. While the total number of seats remains frozen based on the 1971 Census, the 87th Amendment Act, 2003, allowed for the readjustment of constituency boundaries within a State using the 2001 Census figures. The core structure and principle of population-based representation remain, but the specific seat numbers are fixed until after 2026.