Floor Guarantee — Fifth Schedule Protection

The no-state-loses-absolute-seat-count guarantee is placed in the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution. Amendment to the Fifth Schedule requires ratification by three-quarters of state legislatures — 21 of 28 states must consent to reduce any state's floor.

The political protection: the states most motivated to reduce southern floors are a small minority. A 21-state consensus to reduce Kerala's floor is not achievable in any foreseeable political scenario. This placement also avoids the Kesavananda Bharati (1973) [@cite_kesavananda_1973] risk that Parliament cannot use Article 368 to invent an amendment procedure harder than Article 368 itself prescribes — the Fifth Schedule's three-quarters threshold is an existing constitutional procedure, not a newly invented one.

For the draft constitutional text, see Appendix A.3.