The Tiered Model
| Tier | Population Range | Seats Each | Example States | Subtotal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 — Micro | Under 50 lakh | 4 | Sikkim, Goa, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh (7 states) | 28 |
| Tier 2 — Small | 50 lakh – 2 crore | 6 | Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, J&K (5 states) | 30 |
| Tier 3 — Medium | 2 crore – 7 crore | 10 | Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha, Telangana, Delhi (8 states) | 80 |
| Tier 4 — Large | Above 7 crore | 19 | UP, Maharashtra, Bihar, WB, TN, MP, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Gujarat, AP (10 states) | 190 |
| UTs with legislatures | — | 3 each | Puducherry, J&K (Delhi counted in Tier 3) | 6 |
| Other UTs | — | 2 shared | Combined UT electoral college | 2 |
| Nominated | — | 20 | Reformed process (50% women mandatory) | 20 |
| TOTAL | — | — | — | 356 |
The compression. Today the largest state (UP) has 31 Rajya Sabha seats and the smallest (Sikkim) has 1 — a 31-fold gap. Under the tiered model, the largest tier holds 19 seats and the smallest 4. UP : Sikkim falls from 31 : 1 to roughly 5 : 1, bringing India closer to the federal-balance norms of comparable federations (Germany 6:1; United States 2:1) without forcing UP into a politically unratifiable concession.
The 356-seat total preserves the constitutional Lok Sabha : Rajya Sabha ratio of about 2.2 : 1.