Election and Representation Notes | Class 11 Political Science

13 September 2022 · 8 min read

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Overview

This chapter introduces one of the most important features of a democracy: elections. It explains the types and methods of elections used at different levels of Indian democracy, draws a clear distinction between the First Past the Post (FPTP) system and the Proportional Representation (PR) system, and looks closely at bodies such as the Election Commission and the Delimitation Commission, along with the debate on electoral reforms.

Introduction

India is a constitutional democracy with a parliamentary system of government, and at the heart of that system is a commitment to hold regular, free and fair elections.

These elections decide the composition of the government: the membership of the two Houses of Parliament, the State and Union Territory legislative assemblies, and the offices of the President and Vice President.

Elections in India involve political mobilisation and organisational complexity on an astonishing scale.

What is First Past the Post?

The First Past the Post (FPTP) method is an electoral system that is also known as the simple majority system. The candidate with the highest number of votes is the winner. India follows this system for direct elections to the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies.

Under FPTP the whole country is divided into constituencies:

Each constituency elects one representative.
The candidate who secures the highest number of votes in that constituency is declared elected.
Whoever has more votes than every other candidate wins, even without a majority of all the votes cast.
The winning candidate need not secure more than half of the votes.
For this reason the method is also called the plurality system.

What is Proportional Representation?

Under Proportional Representation (PR), each party fills its quota of seats by picking nominees from a preference list that is declared before the election.

In this system a party gets roughly the same proportion of seats as its proportion of votes.

What election system is followed in India?

India uses the PR system only on a limited scale, for some indirect elections. The Constitution prescribes a third and more complex variation of PR for the election of the President and the Vice President, and for elections to the Rajya Sabha and the State Legislative Councils, known as Vidhan Parishads.

Comparison of the FPTP and PR Systems

First Past the Post (FPTP)

The country is divided into small geographical units called constituencies. Every constituency elects one representative.
The voter votes for a candidate.
A party may win a larger share of seats than its share of votes.
A winning candidate may not have a majority of the votes. Examples: the United Kingdom and India.

Proportional Representation (PR)

Large areas are marked out as constituencies, and the whole country may even form a single constituency. More than one representative may be elected from one constituency.
The voter usually votes for a party, and every party gets seats in proportion to its share of votes.
Seats closely match vote share. Examples: Israel and the Netherlands.

What are the advantages of the FPTP system?

The popularity of FPTP rests on its simplicity.

The system is easy to understand, even for voters who have no specialised knowledge of politics and elections.

It offers a clear choice at the time of voting: the voter simply endorses a candidate or a party. Depending on the politics of the moment, voters may give more weight to the party, to the candidate, or balance the two.

FPTP gives voters a choice not only between parties but between specific candidates.

In a constituency based system, voters know who their own representative is and can hold that person accountable.

Why is FPTP thought to suit a stable government better than PR?

A PR based election can make it harder to form a stable government in a parliamentary system.

For the system to work, the executive must command a majority in the legislature. Because seats are shared out in line with vote share, a clear single party majority becomes less likely.

In a diverse country like India, a PR system might encourage many communities to form their own parties, which could lead to a fragmented legislature.

FPTP tends to give the largest party or coalition a bonus in seats compared with its vote share. This helps a stable government form and function. It also encourages voters and candidates from different social groups to come together to win a local seat.

Reserved seats

Under the Constitution, some seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies are reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Only candidates from the group for which a seat is reserved may contest it, but every voter in that constituency casts a vote.

This reservation was first set for a fixed period and has been extended several times. The Constitution (104th Amendment) Act, 2019 extended the reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies up to 25 January 2030, and ended the earlier practice of nominating Anglo-Indian members. Parliament can decide whether to extend it again.

Delimitation Commission

Who decides which constituency is reserved, and on what basis?

The decision on reserving constituencies is made by the Delimitation Commission, an independent body appointed by the President of India, which works together with the Election Commission of India.

The number of seats reserved in each state depends on the share of Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe residents in that state. After drawing the boundaries, the Commission studies the population make up of each constituency.

Seats for Scheduled Tribes are reserved in constituencies with the highest proportion of Scheduled Tribe residents.

For Scheduled Castes the Commission chooses constituencies with a higher share of Scheduled Caste residents, but spreads these seats across the state, because the Scheduled Caste population is fairly evenly distributed.

How many times have the boundaries been redrawn?

A Delimitation Commission has been set up four times, in 1952, 1963, 1973 and 2002, under the Delimitation Commission Acts of 1952, 1962, 1972 and 2002.

42nd Amendment, 1976: the number of seats was frozen until the year 2000.
84th Amendment, 2001: the allocation of seats to states was frozen, on the basis of the 1971 Census, until the first Census taken after 2026.

Universal Adult Franchise and the Right to Contest

Who can vote, and who can contest?

Universal Adult Franchise gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race or ethnicity, subject only to a few minor exceptions.

Earlier the voting age was 21. The Constitution (61st Amendment) Act lowered it to 18 years, with effect from 1989.

This principle means that every citizen can take part in choosing their representatives, which reflects the values of equality and non-discrimination.

The right to contest elections

All citizens have the right to stand for election and to become a representative of the people.

There are minimum age requirements. For example, a candidate must be at least 25 years old to contest a Lok Sabha or State Assembly election.

A person who has been sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more for an offence is disqualified from contesting.

There is no bar of income, education, class or gender on the right to contest.

The Election Commission of India

What is the Election Commission of India?

The Election Commission of India is an autonomous constitutional authority that administers Union and State election processes.

It conducts elections to the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies, and to the offices of the President and Vice President. Articles 324 to 329 of the Constitution deal with its powers, functions, tenure and the eligibility of its members.

A Chief Electoral Officer is appointed in every state to assist the Commission. The Election Commission does not conduct elections to local bodies such as panchayats and municipalities.

The Commission can be a single member or a multi member body. It was a single member body until 1989, when two Election Commissioners were appointed just before that year's elections.

Multi-member Commission

A multi member Election Commission is considered better because power is shared and there is greater accountability. Since 1993 the Commission has worked as a multi member body.

The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) presides over the Commission but does not have more power than the other Election Commissioners. The CEC and the two Election Commissioners have equal say and take decisions as a collective body.

They are appointed by the President of India. The Constitution protects their tenure. They are appointed for a six year term or until the age of 65, whichever is earlier.

The CEC can be removed before the term ends only if both Houses of Parliament pass such a recommendation with a special majority. This protects the CEC from a ruling party that might want a Commission willing to favour it.

What are the functions of the Election Commission?

The Election Commission of India has a wide range of functions:

It supervises the regular updating of the voters' list, also called the electoral roll.
It makes sure the roll is free of errors, such as missing names of genuine voters or the presence of names that are not eligible.
It decides the timing of elections and prepares the election schedule.

The schedule covers the election notification, the start and last dates for filing nominations, the date for scrutiny, the last date for withdrawal, the polling date, and the date for counting and declaring results.

The Commission is solely responsible for the conduct of elections and can take the decisions needed to keep them free and fair. If it finds the atmosphere unfair, it can postpone or cancel elections in a constituency, a state or the whole country. It also lays down a Model Code of Conduct for parties and candidates.

If it believes the counting has not been fair, it can order a re-poll or a recount. The Commission also recognises political parties and allots election symbols to them.

Electoral Reforms

Elections are central to Indian politics, and as one of the world's largest democracies India needs its electoral system to be reviewed and improved from time to time. Some of the reforms that experts have suggested include:

Moving from FPTP towards a variant of the PR system, so that parties win seats closer to their share of votes.
A special provision to ensure that at least one third of the seats in Parliament and the State Assemblies are held by women.
Stricter control over the role of money in elections, with election expenses met from a separate government fund.
Barring candidates who face serious criminal charges from contesting, even while their appeal is pending.
Banning appeals to caste and religion during campaigns.
A law to regulate the working of political parties and to make them transparent and democratic.

Why it still matters

The reforms in this chapter are not just points to memorise. Two of them are live news in 2026.

The 2026 freeze is ending. You read above that the 84th Amendment froze each state's share of Lok Sabha seats, using the 1971 Census, until the first Census after 2026. That Census is now on the calendar. The Government has officially notified Census 2027, with a reference date of 1 March 2027 for most of the country, and it will count caste for the first time since 1931. Once that count is complete, a fresh delimitation can redraw the map of seats. In 2026 the Government introduced the Delimitation Bill, 2026 and the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 to allow the next delimitation and to raise the ceiling on Lok Sabha seats from 550 towards 850.

This is the North versus South debate you will keep hearing about. Because delimitation would give more seats to states with larger populations, southern states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala worry that they will lose weight in Parliament, even though they slowed their population growth. Northern states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar could gain seats. This is exactly the tension between representation by population and fairness between states that the FPTP rules and the seat freeze in this chapter are trying to balance.

The women's reservation is now law. The chapter lists a one third reservation for women as a reform that experts wanted. In September 2023 Parliament actually passed it, as the Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, known as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam. It reserves one third of the seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Assemblies for women, with a share of those seats set aside for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe women. There is a catch that ties straight back to this chapter: the reservation only begins after the next Census and the delimitation that follows it, which is why the 2026 and 2027 timeline matters so much.

So the machinery in your notes, the Census, the Delimitation Commission, the FPTP seats and the reforms wish list, is being rebuilt in real time. To revise the rest of this unit, see the other Class 11 Political Science notes and the wider study notes library, and to see how elections connect to history, economics and geography, explore the Learnacy Hub.

Sources

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