General elections 2014: The relevance of small states

In government policy discourse, states with a population of less than 20 million are loosely referred to as ‘small states’. There are 18 such states/Union Territories, according to Census 2011. Numerically, these small states account for just 41 seats of the 543-member Lok Sabha.

But in the last four general elections, the national party that won more seats in these small states formed the government.