March 13, 2019 12:15 am | Updated 12:46 am IST
This refers to an electoral system in which the distribution of seats corresponds closely with the proportion of the total votes cast for each party. This is a more complicated but representative system than the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, which is used in India. If a party gets 40% of the total votes, for example, a perfectly proportional system would allow it to get 40% of the seats. Some countries used a combination of the proportional representation system and the FPTP system.
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