Lok Sabha Seats State-wise: Quick Answer
India's Lok Sabha has 543 elected seats as of 7 November 2026 — 524 from the 28 states and 19 from the 8 union territories. Of these, 412 are General seats, 84 are reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and 47 for Scheduled Tribes (ST), so 131 seats (about 24.1% of the House) are reserved. Uttar Pradesh has the most (80), followed by Maharashtra (48), West Bengal (42), Bihar (40) and Tamil Nadu (39) — the five together hold 249 seats, nearly 46% of the House.
🔥 Key Exam Takeaway: Total = 543 (524 states + 19 UTs; General 412 + SC 84 + ST 47). The old figure of 545 is wrong — the 2 Anglo-Indian nominated seats were abolished by the 104th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2019. Seats are still allocated on the 1971 census: the freeze runs until the first census taken after 2026, which is Census 2027 (reference date 1 March 2027). Article 81 caps the House at 550. Reservation for SC/ST in the Lok Sabha is under Article 330.
Why do some websites still say 545? Because they predate the 104th Amendment (in force January 2020). The two Anglo-Indian seats were nominated by the President, not elected, and lapsed when the amendment came into force. Any page still counting them is stale. This page is as of 7 November 2026.
Lok Sabha Basics: How the 543 Seats Are Fixed
The Lok Sabha, the House of the People, is the lower house of Parliament. Its members are elected directly from single-member constituencies, one MP per constituency. The current House is the 18th Lok Sabha, elected in 2024.
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Total elected seats | 543 (524 states + 19 UTs) |
| Maximum strength | 550 under Article 81 (530 from states + 20 from UTs) |
| Reservation | SC 84 + ST 47 = 131, under Article 330 |
| Readjustment after census | Article 82 (delimitation) |
| Reservation in state assemblies | Article 332 |
| Term of the House | 5 years (unless dissolved earlier) |
| First Lok Sabha | 1952, with 489 seats |
| Current Lok Sabha | 18th Lok Sabha (elected 2024) |
| Anglo-Indian nominated seats | Abolished by the 104th Amendment, 2019 (in force January 2020) |
Two numbers in this table cause the most confusion, so learn the difference. The maximum under Article 81 is 550 (530 states + 20 UTs), but the actual allocation is 543 (524 + 19) — the maxima are ceilings, not real counts. The same trap appears with the old maximum of 552 — 530 + 20 + 2 Anglo-Indian nominated seats — which died with the 104th Amendment.
Reservation is equally fixed: Article 330 reserves seats for SCs and STs in proportion to their population in each state, and the 84 SC and 47 ST seats have not changed since the 2008 delimitation order.
The Delimitation Freeze: Why Seats Still Follow the 1971 Census
The single most important fact about Lok Sabha seats is also the most counter-intuitive: the seats are allocated on the 1971 census, not on the latest census. Censuses in 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2011 changed no state's seat count. The reason is a deliberate freeze, written into the Constitution to reward states that controlled their population growth.
The freeze happened in three steps. The 42nd Amendment (1976) froze seat allocation until after the 2001 census. The 84th Amendment (2001) extended the freeze on the number of seats until the first census taken after 2026. And the 87th Amendment (2003) reworked SC/ST-reserved seats and redrew constituency boundaries on the 2001 census, without changing any state's total. The 2008 delimitation order under the Delimitation Act, 2002 — first used in the 2009 election — changed the map inside each state but left every state's total untouched.
The consequence is visible in the table below. Uttar Pradesh holds 80 seats on roughly 16.5% of India's 2011 population (14.7% of the House); Kerala holds 20 on roughly 2.8% (3.7% of the House). States that slowed population growth kept more seats per person than faster-growing ones — the imbalance at the heart of the delimitation debate, and why the freeze is the live story of 2026.
What would a redistribution look like? PRS Legislative Research has illustrated what would happen if the same 543 seats were redistributed on the 2011 census: Uttar Pradesh would rise to 89, Bihar to 46, Rajasthan to 30, Maharashtra to 50, Tamil Nadu would fall to 32 and Kerala to 15. These are projections, not a plan — no law has adopted them, and they should never be quoted as decided numbers. But they explain why the southern states watch delimitation so closely.
Latest Changes: Assam, Jammu & Kashmir and the Delimitation Bills of 2026
No state's seat total has changed since the 2008 delimitation order. What has changed is reservation status inside two states, and — in 2026 — the law that governs the next delimitation itself.
| Change | What happened | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Assam delimitation | Seat total unchanged at 14, but reservation changed: Karimganj became General (was SC) and Silchar became SC (was General); Kokrajhar and Diphu remain ST. The 2024 election used the new boundaries. | Election Commission order, August 2023 |
| Jammu & Kashmir delimitation | 5 Lok Sabha seats, none reserved for SC/ST. The J&K Delimitation Commission reserved SC/ST seats in the Assembly only — a common confusion. | Delimitation Commission order, 2022 |
| Delimitation Bills, 2026 | The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 and the Delimitation Bill, 2026 were introduced in the Lok Sabha. They proposed raising the Lok Sabha maximum from 550 to 850 (815 from states + 35 from UTs) and carrying out delimitation on the 2011 census instead of waiting for the post-2026 census. The 131st Amendment Bill was defeated in the Lok Sabha on 17 April 2026 (298 for, 230 against; 352 needed for a two-thirds majority), and the government then withdrew the linked Delimitation Bill and UT Laws Bill — the current total is still 543. | Introduced 16 April 2026; defeated 17 April 2026 |
| Census 2027 | The first census after 2026, with reference date 1 March 2027. Under the Constitution as it stands, delimitation follows this census. No Delimitation Commission has been constituted as of 7 November 2026. | Reference date 1 March 2027 |
The 2026 bills would have changed the rules before the census route played out: instead of delimitation following Census 2027, Parliament would have authorised it on the 2011 census, with women's reservation under the 106th Amendment taking effect on that delimitation. Because the 131st Amendment Bill was defeated on 17 April 2026 and the linked bills were withdrawn, none of this is law. For exams, the safe answer remains: 543 seats, frozen on the 1971 census, delimitation due after Census 2027.
Lok Sabha Seats State-wise List 2026 (All 543)
Gen = General, SC = Scheduled Castes, ST = Scheduled Tribes. The table reflects the post-2023 Assam position. Jammu & Kashmir has 5 seats and Ladakh 1, a total of 6 across the two UTs carved out of the old state of Jammu & Kashmir, which had 6 seats before 2019.
| # | State / UT | General | SC | ST | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Andhra Pradesh | 20 | 4 | 1 | 25 |
| 2 | Arunachal Pradesh | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 3 | Assam | 11 | 1 | 2 | 14 |
| 4 | Bihar | 34 | 6 | 0 | 40 |
| 5 | Chhattisgarh | 6 | 1 | 4 | 11 |
| 6 | Goa | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 7 | Gujarat | 20 | 2 | 4 | 26 |
| 8 | Haryana | 8 | 2 | 0 | 10 |
| 9 | Himachal Pradesh | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| 10 | Jharkhand | 8 | 1 | 5 | 14 |
| 11 | Karnataka | 21 | 5 | 2 | 28 |
| 12 | Kerala | 18 | 2 | 0 | 20 |
| 13 | Madhya Pradesh | 19 | 4 | 6 | 29 |
| 14 | Maharashtra | 39 | 5 | 4 | 48 |
| 15 | Manipur | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 16 | Meghalaya | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 17 | Mizoram | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 18 | Nagaland | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 19 | Odisha | 13 | 3 | 5 | 21 |
| 20 | Punjab | 9 | 4 | 0 | 13 |
| 21 | Rajasthan | 18 | 4 | 3 | 25 |
| 22 | Sikkim | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 23 | Tamil Nadu | 32 | 7 | 0 | 39 |
| 24 | Telangana | 12 | 3 | 2 | 17 |
| 25 | Tripura | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 26 | Uttar Pradesh | 63 | 17 | 0 | 80 |
| 27 | Uttarakhand | 4 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| 28 | West Bengal | 30 | 10 | 2 | 42 |
| 29 | Andaman & Nicobar Islands | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 30 | Chandigarh | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 31 | Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 32 | Jammu & Kashmir | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| 33 | Ladakh | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 34 | Lakshadweep | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 35 | Delhi (NCT) | 6 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
| 36 | Puducherry | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| TOTAL | 412 | 84 | 47 | 543 |
The 28 states add up to 524 and the 8 UTs to 19, giving 543; the columns add up too — General 412, SC 84, ST 47.
Which State Has the Most Lok Sabha Seats? (Top and Bottom States)
| Rank | State | Seats |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Uttar Pradesh | 80 |
| 2 | Maharashtra | 48 |
| 3 | West Bengal | 42 |
| 4 | Bihar | 40 |
| 5 | Tamil Nadu | 39 |
The top five hold 249 seats (45.9% of the House); Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra alone hold 128. At the other end, three states have one seat each — Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim — and five UTs have one each: Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Ladakh, Lakshadweep, Puducherry.
Reservation has its own leaders. Uttar Pradesh has the most SC-reserved seats (17), followed by West Bengal (10), Tamil Nadu (7) and Bihar (6). Madhya Pradesh leads on ST seats (6), then Jharkhand and Odisha (5 each) and Chhattisgarh (4). Nine states/UTs have no reserved seat at all — Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Nagaland, Sikkim, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh and Puducherry are all-General. Three places are all-ST: Meghalaya (2/2), Mizoram (1/1) and Lakshadweep (1/1).
The North-East is a useful grouping for exams: the eight north-eastern states hold 25 seats between them, and Assam alone (14) has more than the other seven combined (11). Among UTs, Delhi leads with 7 seats, then Jammu & Kashmir with 5, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu with 2, and five UTs with 1 each — 7 + 5 + 2 + 5 = 19. Two traps sit in this table: Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu has 2 seats, not 1 — one General (Daman & Diu) and one ST (Dadra & Nagar Haveli) — since the two UTs merged in 2020. And undivided Andhra Pradesh's 42 seats are now split as Andhra Pradesh 25 + Telangana 17 after the 2014 bifurcation.
Lok Sabha Seats: Records and Unique Facts
| Record | Answer |
|---|---|
| Largest state by seats | Uttar Pradesh, 80 — unchanged since 1971 (UP had 85 before Uttarakhand was carved out in 2000) |
| First Lok Sabha | 1952, with 489 seats |
| First Lok Sabha with 543 seats and no nominated members | 17th Lok Sabha (2019) — the two Anglo-Indian nominated seats lapsed in January 2020, during its term |
| First election on post-2023 Assam boundaries | 2024 general election (18th Lok Sabha) |
| Women MPs in the 18th Lok Sabha | 74 (13.6%) in 2024, down from 78 (14.4%) in the 17th Lok Sabha — so 2024 was not the highest ever |
| Women's reservation law | 106th Amendment, 2023 (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam) — reserves one-third of seats for women, but applies only after the next delimitation |
| Largest constituency by area | Ladakh |
| Smallest constituency by area | Chandni Chowk, Delhi |
The women's reservation point deserves care because it is the most-asked follow-up to any Lok Sabha question. The 106th Amendment (2023) reserves one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies for women, but the reservation takes effect only after the next delimitation. Since no delimitation has happened since the law was passed, the 74 women elected in 2024 won open seats, not reserved ones. Note also that 74 is fewer than the 78 women in the 17th Lok Sabha — several pages wrongly call 74 the highest ever.
One-line facts that are asked in exams
- Uttar Pradesh (80): has held the top spot since 1971, and its 17 SC-reserved seats are the most of any state.
- Tamil Nadu (39): 32 General + 7 SC, no ST seats — the largest state with zero ST-reserved seats.
- Kerala (20): 18 General + 2 SC; its 20 seats on a small population share are the classic example of the freeze favouring slower-growing states.
- Madhya Pradesh (29): 19 General + 4 SC + 6 ST — the most ST-reserved seats of any state.
- Meghalaya, Mizoram, Lakshadweep: the only places where every Lok Sabha seat is ST-reserved.
- Andhra Pradesh (25) + Telangana (17) = 42: the old undivided Andhra Pradesh total.
How to Remember Lok Sabha Seats (Study Method)
- Learn the top-five chain first: 80–48–42–40–39 (UP–Maharashtra–West Bengal–Bihar–Tamil Nadu). "UP eats the most (80), Maharashtra next (48)."
- Learn the reserved split as one number: 131 = SC 84 + ST 47. Remember "84 SC, 47 ST".
- Learn the "25 club": Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan both have 25; Odisha has 21 and Kerala 20.
- Learn the UT total as a sum: Delhi 7 + J&K 5 + Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu 2 + five 1-seat UTs = 19.
- Learn the freeze rhyme: "1971 frozen, 2026 the door opens" — the 42nd Amendment (1976) froze it, the 84th (2001) set the 2026 date, the 87th (2003) redrew the lines.
- Learn the North-East as 14 + 11: Assam 14 beats the other seven north-eastern states combined (11).
Lok Sabha Seats MCQs with Answers
Q1. How many seats are there in the Lok Sabha? (a) 545 (b) 550 (c) 543 (d) 552 Answer: (c) 543, all elected. The 2 Anglo-Indian nominated seats were abolished by the 104th Amendment, 2019.
Q2. Which state has the maximum number of Lok Sabha seats? (a) Maharashtra (b) West Bengal (c) Bihar (d) Uttar Pradesh Answer: (d) Uttar Pradesh, 80.
Q3. How many Lok Sabha seats are reserved for SC and ST? (a) SC 84, ST 47 (b) SC 79, ST 41 (c) SC 84, ST 41 (d) SC 79, ST 47 Answer: (a) SC 84, ST 47 — 131 reserved seats in all.
Q4. How many Lok Sabha seats does Maharashtra have? (a) 46 (b) 48 (c) 50 (d) 52 Answer: (b) 48 (39 General + 5 SC + 4 ST). Some stale pages say 46 — that is wrong.
Q5. Which states have only one Lok Sabha seat? (a) Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim (b) Goa, Sikkim, Tripura (c) Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram (d) Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura Answer: (a) Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim. Among UTs, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Ladakh, Lakshadweep and Puducherry also have one each.
Q6. On which census is the current Lok Sabha seat allocation based? (a) 2011 census (b) 2001 census (c) 1971 census (d) 1981 census Answer: (c) The 1971 census — frozen by the 42nd Amendment and extended to the first census after 2026 by the 84th Amendment.
Q7. Which constitutional amendment abolished the Anglo-Indian nominated seats in the Lok Sabha? (a) 101st Amendment (b) 102nd Amendment (c) 103rd Amendment (d) 104th Amendment Answer: (d) 104th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2019.
Q8. How many Lok Sabha seats does Delhi have, and how many are reserved for SC? (a) 7 seats, 1 SC (b) 7 seats, 2 SC (c) 6 seats, 1 SC (d) 8 seats, 1 SC Answer: (a) 7 seats, of which 1 is reserved for SC (6 General + 1 SC).
Q9. Which state has the most ST-reserved Lok Sabha seats? (a) Jharkhand (b) Odisha (c) Madhya Pradesh (d) Chhattisgarh Answer: (c) Madhya Pradesh, 6 (Jharkhand and Odisha have 5 each).
Q10. How many Lok Sabha seats do Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have after bifurcation? (a) AP 25, Telangana 17 (b) AP 28, Telangana 14 (c) AP 22, Telangana 20 (d) AP 25, Telangana 15 Answer: (a) Andhra Pradesh 25, Telangana 17 — 42 together, the old undivided total.
Lok Sabha Seats FAQs
What is the maximum strength of the Lok Sabha?
550 under Article 81 (530 from states + 20 from UTs). The current strength is 543 elected seats.
Why hasn't the number of Lok Sabha seats changed since 1971?
Because allocation was frozen by the 42nd Amendment (1976), extended by the 84th Amendment (2001) until the first census after 2026, to reward states that controlled population growth. Only constituency boundaries were redrawn in the meantime, on the 2001 census.
When will Lok Sabha seats be redistributed?
After the first census taken after 2026 — Census 2027 (reference date 1 March 2027) — a Delimitation Commission must then be constituted. The Delimitation Bills introduced on 16 April 2026 proposed using the 2011 census instead, but the 131st Amendment Bill was defeated in the Lok Sabha on 17 April 2026 and the companion bills were withdrawn, so no new seat numbers exist.
How many Lok Sabha seats are there in total including nominated members?
None now. The 2 Anglo-Indian nominated seats were abolished by the 104th Amendment in 2019 (in force January 2020). The total is 543, all elected.
Which UT has the most Lok Sabha seats?
Delhi (NCT) with 7, followed by Jammu & Kashmir with 5.
How many Lok Sabha seats does Tamil Nadu have?
39 — 32 General + 7 SC, with no ST-reserved seats.
Does every state have at least one Lok Sabha seat?
Yes. The smallest states — Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim — have 1 each.
Related topics: revise States and Capitals of India 2026, Census 2011 India Key Facts, Important Articles of the Indian Constitution, List of Governors and Chief Ministers of Indian States 2026 and President of India List 1950 to 2026 next.
Practice Next
- Test yourself: SSC CGL General Awareness Mock Test 1
- More GA practice: SSC CGL General Awareness Sectional Mock Test 01
- Polity notes: Important Articles of the Indian Constitution and First in India List
- State companion: States and Capitals of India 2026 and List of Governors and Chief Ministers of Indian States 2026
- Population context: Census 2011 India Key Facts
- General GK hub: Static GK for SSC CGL
- More free notes: All Study Notes
Sources: Wikipedia "List of constituencies of the Lok Sabha" (state-wise General/SC/ST table); Testbook state-wise seat table (convergent totals); PRS Legislative Research delimitation projections via tuput.com; PRS BillTrack, The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill, 2026 and the Delimitation Bill, 2026 (introduced 16 April 2026; 131st Bill defeated 17 April 2026, linked bills withdrawn); Election Commission of India, Assam delimitation order (August 2023); Election Commission of India 2024 general election data (women MPs 74, down from 78 in 2019). As of 7 November 2026.