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How India divides Lok Sabha seats

India's seat allocation comes from a rule the Delimitation Commission wrote down in 1963: divide by the average, round to the nearest whole number, and if the total falls short, give the spare seat to the largest fraction below one half. Change the inputs below and watch what it does. Every figure is computed in your browser from published census counts.

Set the inputs

543

Seats, state by state

Unit Population Exact share Seats Actual Change People per MP

Grow the House and watch for drops

Each line is one unit. Under a largest-remainder rule such as India's, a line can go down as the House grows. That is the Alabama paradox, and it is why the United States abandoned this method in 1900. Divisor methods never do it.

a unit that loses a seat in this range a loss the 1963 Order works through a loss needing its principle extended everything else