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Q5 (IAS/1995) Polity & Governance › State Executive & Legislature › State legislative assembly Answer Verified

Consider the table given below providing some details of the results of the election to the Karnataka State Legislative . In terms of electoral analysis, the voter-seat distortion is to be explained as the result of the adoption of the

Political Party | Percentage of popular votes obtained | Number of seats secured
Janata Dal | 3.6 | 1.16
Congress | 3.1 | 3.5
BJP | 2.0.4 | 4.0

Result
Your answer: —  Â·  Correct: C
Explanation

Voter-seat distortion—where a party’s share of seats differs substantially from its share of votes—arises from single-member, plurality contests. Under the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) system a candidate who secures more votes than any rival wins the seat even without a majority, and each constituency elects only one representative. This structure frequently translates geographically concentrated pluralities into disproportionately large seat shares for some parties and under-representation for others; the book notes that a party (Congress) won a greater share of seats than its vote share because many winning candidates secured less than 50% of votes, illustrating FPTP’s disproportionality [2].

Sources

  1. [1] Indian Constitution at Work, Political Science Class XI (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 3: ELECTION AND REPRESENTATION > Chapter 3: Election and Representation > p. 57
  2. [2] Indian Polity, M. Laxmikanth(7th ed.) > Chapter 23: Parliament > First-Past-The-Post System > p. 225
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