The conflict between democratic principles and one of the federalism becomes apparent in the ongoing debate on demarcation. “One person, one vote, one value” is the principle of India’s electoral system. In practice, at least this should mean that all voters in Lok Sabha constituency should be roughly the same.
The Republic of India is formed as a “universal of states”. The state is the constituent unit, which has personal identity and power. Therefore, demarcation debates must take into account the relative weights of individual voters and individual countries. It must be related to federal democracy.
A two-step process
Article 81 (2) of the Constitution considers federalism and democracy by providing the allocation of Lok Sabha seats in a two-step process. The first step is to divide them into states. In the second step, they are divided into constituencies within the states. Article 81, paragraph 2 (a) provides allocations in the same way for all states where feasible.
In Article 81, paragraph 2(b), it is stated that “each state shall be divided into territorial constituencies in this way so that the ratio between the population of each constituency and the number of seats allocated to it is the same throughout the country.” In both clauses, deviations can be achieved and demarcation behaviors are more detailed.
The 84th Amendment to the Constitution in 2001, and the 87th Amendment in 2003 (when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister), separates the two-step process to base it on two separate population counts in more precise terms.
Distribution among countries is related to the 1971 census. The distribution within the state is based on the 2001 census. In the Current Text of the Constitution, Article 81, 3 defines references to “population” in two ways, as follows:
The delimiting committee appointed in 2002 followed this standard, and its recommendations were implemented in 2008, when Manmohan Singh served as prime minister. The 84th Amendment prohibits the next interstate redistribution by the 84th Amendment, the First Census after 2026 (the First Census after Published No. 84).
The distribution represented
This representative distribution is now compared with the distribution of land wealth in a combined family with multiple constituent family units. India is similar to a united family and state, i.e. it forms a family unit. Each unit grants its share of land based on the size of its membership – the more members, the higher the share. Each unit further allocates its share to individual members.
Over time, some units have more members, which leads to a decrease in their share of individual members; others have fewer members, which leads to an increase in the number of holders per capita. That’s what happens when the value of voting across states. In 1967, each member of Lok Sabha represented approximately Rs 4.2 lakh electors in all major states. But in 2024, a MP from Kerala represented about 1.39 million voters, while in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar each MP was 19.3 million (all after the fork) and in Rajasthan, 21.4 million.
This means that voters in each state no longer have the value of voting. To better understand this, let’s choose a middle point called the median country, the population of each MP in India. We assign this median to 1. We then calculate the vote value for each state by comparing it to this median.
For example, if a state’s member of Congress represents twice the median, its vote is worth 0.5 because a member of Congress is completing the work of two people. If the number of members of Congress in another state represents half the number of people, its vote is worth 2, which means that their number is twice as high as the average.
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the voting value of 20 major states in 1967 and 2024. In 1967, the voting value of these states changed relatively little.
Figure 1 | This figure shows the voting value of 20 major states in 1967
By 2024, the median gap has narrowed significantly, with voting value rising sharply in some states while others have dropped significantly. Kerala has 30% higher voting value than the national median, followed by Tamil Nadu (13%), Odisha (12%) and Punjab (9%).
On the other hand, the voting value in Rajasthan is 16% lower than the median, while the voting value in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is lower than the median. As the relative size of the population within each unit increases, the value of each vote decreases – as the land ownership splits and vice versa.
Figure 2 | This graph shows the voting value of 20 major states in 2024
If the Lok Sabha constituency is delineated based on the current population, regardless of the state boundaries, i.e., when all votes throughout India have the same value, the distribution between countries will undergo significant changes. For example, today Rajasthan, which has 4.6% of Lok Sabha members, can get 5.5%, while Kerala, which has 3.7% will see its share drop to 2.8% (Figure 3).
The data captures the conflict between two principles of Indian federal democracy – relative representatives of the state and individual voters.
varghese.g@thehindu.co.in
vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in
publishing – April 10, 2025 07:00 AM IST
