Watch: Why 234? | How 1963 fixed Tamil Nadu’s seat count

Have you ever wondered how Tamil Nadu ended up with 234 Assembly seats? Why 234 — and not 200 or 250? The answer goes back to 1963, when the Delimitation Commission introduced a unique mathematical formula for Madras State, now Tamil Nadu. In fact, Madras was the only state in India where the Commission altered the arithmetic used to determine Assembly constituencies. Why did the Delimitation Commission create a special formula for the Dravidian heartland?