New Delhi: Eighty-eight days have passed since the Monsoon Session of Parliament was adjourned sine die on August 13, but neither the Lok Sabha nor the Rajya Sabha has yet been formally prorogued, setting a new record for the longest gap between an indefinite adjournment and the formal end of a session, Hindustan Samachar reported on Monday.

Source: Hindustan Samachar

The previous longest interval was 87 days, recorded after the 2008 Monsoon Session. Because the session has not been prorogued, Parliament can technically be reconvened under the existing session at short notice.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh raised the issue in a post on X on Monday, calling it a new record. Citing page 192 of the eighth edition of Kaul and Shakdher, the authoritative reference on parliamentary practice, he noted that the gap between the Lok Sabha's adjournment sine die and its prorogation is generally two to four days, and that a footnote in the book records 28 days, during the 2015 Monsoon Session, as the longest such gap.

Source: Devdiscourse

Ramesh pointed to an October 19, 2026 letter from Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, in which the Minister cited the 87-day interval of 2008. Ramesh argued that the 2008 arrangement had been agreed by all political parties in exceptional circumstances, and that even by the Minister's own reckoning the present 88-day gap has now surpassed it.

The allegation: time being bought for delimitation

Ramesh alleged — an allegation the government has not responded to in the reports — that the session is being kept unprorogued to give Union Home Minister Amit Shah time to muster the two-thirds majority needed in the Lok Sabha to pass the proposed Delimitation Bills. He also said Kharge has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi four times in the past six months seeking an all-party meeting on delimitation, without one being convened.

Source: The Legitimate

The proposed delimitation exercise envisages raising the strength of the Lok Sabha from 543 seats to a maximum of 850. A related constitutional amendment effort, the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026, was defeated in the Lok Sabha on April 17, 2026 after it failed to secure the required two-thirds majority, according to the reports.

The Constitution prescribes no fixed time limit for proroguing a House after it has been adjourned sine die. Earlier long gaps include 76 days in 1987, 54 days in 1989 and 49 days each in 2006 and 2013. The Monsoon Session itself began on July 20 and ran for 19 sittings over 25 days before its August 13 adjournment.