Elections: Universal Suffrage, Reserved Seats, and the New Women's Reservation Timeline

This chapter is about the electoral system itself: who gets to vote, which seats are set aside for whom, and under what rule. It is deliberately separate from the Election Commission chapter, which covers the institution that runs elections rather than the rules elections themselves run on.

Universal adult suffrage (Article 326)

Article 326 puts elections to the Lok Sabha and every state Legislative Assembly on the footing of adult suffrage: every citizen who is not less than 18 years of age on the qualifying date, and not otherwise disqualified on grounds of non-residence, unsoundness of mind, crime, or a corrupt or illegal practice, is entitled to be registered as a voter. The voting age was not always 18: the original Constitution set it at 21, and the Sixty-first Amendment Act, 1988 lowered it to 18, enfranchising a large new cohort of first-time voters at a stroke.

Reserved constituencies for SCs and STs (Article 330)

Article 330 reserves seats in the Lok Sabha for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, with the number of seats reserved in a state proportional, as nearly as may be, to that community's share of the state's population. This is reservation of the constituency, not extra seats: an SC or ST-reserved constituency has ordinary boundaries and one seat like any other, but only candidates from that community may contest it, while every voter in the constituency, regardless of community, still votes.

The new addition: one-third reservation for women (Articles 330A and 334A)

The Constitution (One Hundred and Sixth Amendment) Act, 2023 inserted Article 330A, reserving one-third of the total seats in the Lok Sabha filled by direct election for women, with one-third of that reservation further set aside for women belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The same structure applies to state Legislative Assemblies and the Delhi Assembly under the parallel Article 332A.

The provision the exam is most likely to test is timing, and it is precise: Article 334A states that this reservation comes into effect only after a delimitation exercise is undertaken following the first census taken after the 2023 Amendment's commencement, and once triggered, it ceases to have effect after fifteen years unless Parliament extends it. Seats rotate among constituencies after each subsequent delimitation, as Parliament decides by law. The practical consequence worth holding onto: as of this Amendment, women's reservation in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies is enacted but not yet in force, since it is contingent on a census-and-delimitation exercise that has not yet occurred. A statement that treats the one-third reservation as already operational is a live distractor: the Act exists, the seats do not yet.

The nomination process, briefly

A candidate for a Parliamentary or Assembly constituency files a nomination paper with the Returning Officer, and the Representation of the People Act, 1951 requires it to be accompanied by a security deposit, forfeited if the candidate fails to secure a specified minimum vote share. The deposit is halved for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates, a concession built into the same provision, consistent with the reservation logic running through this whole chapter: lowering the practical barrier to contesting, not just to voting.

Quick revision points

• Article 326: adult suffrage, voting age 18 (lowered from 21 by the 61st Amendment, 1988).
• Article 330: Lok Sabha seats reserved for SCs and STs, proportional to their population share in each state; the constituency is reserved for candidature, not the electorate.
• Article 330A / 332A (106th Amendment, 2023): one-third of Lok Sabha and state Assembly seats reserved for women, one-third of that for SC/ST women.
• Article 334A: the women's reservation takes effect only after delimitation following the first census after the 2023 Amendment, then lapses after 15 years unless extended; rotates after each later delimitation. Not yet in force as of this note.
• Nomination under the RPA, 1951 requires a security deposit, halved for SC/ST candidates, forfeited below a minimum vote-share threshold.

The women's-reservation timing detail above is exactly the kind of precisely-worded provision UPSC likes to split into true/false statements; know that the Act exists and exactly what condition still has to be met before its seats do.