States & Union Territories

Andaman and Nicobar Islands

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a Union Territory of India, constituted on 1 November 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act, comprising an archipelago in the Bay of Bengal administered directly by the Union through a Lieutenant Governor. It had 380,581 residents at the 2011 Census — among the smallest populations of any Indian territory — organised into three districts and sending a single member to the Lok Sabha. Unlike Delhi or Puducherry, it has no legislative assembly and no council of ministers: there is no Chief Minister, and executive authority rests with the Union's appointee rather than an elected territorial government. Its distinctive weight in the Republic is strategic rather than demographic — it hosts India's tri-service Andaman and Nicobar Command, and its southern islands are the site of the Union's largest greenfield infrastructure programme, the Great Nicobar development plan.

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh is a state of the Indian Union, first formed on 1 November 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act as the country's first state constituted on linguistic lines, and reconstituted on 2 June 2014 when the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 carved Telangana out of it. The residuary state had a population of 4.96 crore at the 2011 Census, sends 25 members to the Lok Sabha and 11 to the Rajya Sabha, and is one of a minority of Indian states with a bicameral legislature — a 175-seat Legislative Assembly and a 58-seat Legislative Council that was abolished in 1985 and revived in 2007. What structurally defines it is that it is a successor state still building its own institutional seat: bifurcation left it without a capital city, and the location and financing of that capital, along with the Polavaram irrigation project designated a national project by the same 2014 Act, remain the state's central contests with the Union and within itself.

Arunachal Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh is India's largest north-eastern state by area and its least densely populated, governed by a 60-member unicameral legislature at Itanagar and represented in the Union Parliament by two Lok Sabha and one Rajya Sabha seat. It was carved out of the North-East Frontier Agency as a Union Territory in 1972 and admitted as the twenty-fourth state of the Republic on 20 February 1987. Two structural facts define it: Article 371H, inserted alongside statehood, vests the Governor with special powers concerning the state, and the state's budget runs at a scale its own economy cannot fund — projected expenditure of roughly Rs 38,809 crore against a projected GSDP of Rs 47,823 crore in 2025-26. Nearly all of its territory is claimed by China, making the state simultaneously a federal unit and a frontier.

Assam

Assam is a constituent state of the Indian Union, recognised as a state when the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950, and the residual territory left after Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram were carved out of it between 1963 and 1972. It is the most populous state of the Northeast, with 31.2 million people at the 2011 Census, and its government is answerable to a unicameral 126-member Legislative Assembly at Dispur; it sends 14 members to the Lok Sabha and 7 to the Rajya Sabha. Its distinctive structural feature is that citizenship itself is administered differently here: the Assam Accord of 1985 and Section 6A of the Citizenship Act fix a 24 March 1971 cut-off unique to the state, and large parts of its hill and Bodo-majority territory are governed through Sixth Schedule autonomous councils rather than ordinary district administration.

Bihar

Bihar is a state of the Indian Union in the eastern Gangetic plain, constituted as a province on 22 March 1912 and reduced to its present boundaries on 15 November 2000 when eighteen southern districts were separated to form Jharkhand. It is among the most populous states in the Republic — 10.41 crore people at the 2011 Census, about 8.6% of India — and sends 40 members to the Lok Sabha, one of the largest state blocs in Parliament. Its legislature is bicameral: a 243-seat Vidhan Sabha and a 75-seat Vidhan Parishad, one of only a handful of states retaining an upper house. What structurally defines Bihar is the gap between its demographic weight and its fiscal base: the 2000 bifurcation took the mineral and industrial belt with it, leaving a state that carries roughly a twelfth of India's voters on one of the lowest per-capita incomes in the Union and a budget heavily dependent on Union transfers and borrowing.

Chandigarh

Chandigarh is a Union Territory of the Indian Republic, constituted on 1 November 1966 under the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, on the same appointed day that Haryana was carved out of Punjab. It is the only unit of the Union that serves as the shared capital of two states, Punjab and Haryana, while itself belonging to neither. It has no legislative assembly and no council of ministers: it is administered directly by the Union under Article 239 through an Administrator, an office held concurrently by the Governor of Punjab since 1984, and it sends one member to the Lok Sabha. Its 2011 Census population was 1,055,450 across 114 square kilometres, making it one of the smallest and most densely settled territories in the Union, and its unresolved status as a capital claimed by Punjab keeps it a standing item of federal dispute rather than a settled administrative arrangement.

Chhattisgarh

Chhattisgarh is a state of the Indian Union carved out of Madhya Pradesh on 1 November 2000 by the Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000, becoming the Republic's 26th state. It held 25,545,198 people at the 2011 Census, sends 11 members to the Lok Sabha and 5 to the Rajya Sabha, and governs itself through a unicameral 90-seat Vidhan Sabha at Raipur. Its structural distinction is a double one: it is a mineral and power state whose coal, steel and electricity output feed the national grid and national industry far out of proportion to its size, and large parts of it — above all the Bastar division — are Fifth Schedule Scheduled Areas that have been the principal theatre of India's Left-Wing Extremism problem, making the state the place where the Union's internal-security machinery and a State List government meet most directly.

Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu

Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is a Union Territory of India formed on 26 January 2020 by merging two previously separate Union Territories, both of them former Portuguese possessions taken into the Republic in the early 1960s. It is one of the smallest units of the Union — roughly 603 sq km of non-contiguous enclaves scattered across Gujarat and Maharashtra, with about 5.87 lakh people at the 2011 Census — yet it sends two members to the Lok Sabha. Structurally, it is defined by what it does not have: no legislative assembly, no council of ministers and no Chief Minister, so it is run directly by an Administrator appointed by the President under Article 239, with the President legislating for it by regulation under Article 240. Its economy is an artefact of that constitutional position: decades of Union tax and excise concessions turned Silvassa and Daman into migrant-labour manufacturing belts, producing the most male-skewed sex ratios recorded anywhere in India.

Delhi (NCT)

Delhi is the National Capital Territory of India — a Union Territory that the Constitution (Sixty-ninth Amendment) Act, 1991 gave a directly elected Legislative Assembly and a Council of Ministers, making it the only capital in the Republic where a state-style elected government and the Union administer the same ground. Article 239AA withholds from that Assembly the three subjects that normally define a state government's authority — public order, police, and land — leaving them with the Union through the Lieutenant Governor. Its economy is among the richest per head in India, with per capita GSDP estimated at Rs 5,12,131 in 2023-24 against an all-India per capita GDP of Rs 2,15,935. What makes Delhi structurally distinctive is not its size but its unresolved constitutional settlement: the boundary between the elected government and the Union has been litigated to the Supreme Court twice and rewritten by Parliament twice since 2018.

Goa

Goa is the smallest Indian state by area and among the smallest by population, admitted as the Republic's 25th state on 30 May 1987 after twenty-five years as a Union Territory formed out of territory taken from Portuguese rule in December 1961. It governs itself through a unicameral 40-member Legislative Assembly at Porvorim and sends two members to the Lok Sabha and one to the Rajya Sabha, giving it the thinnest parliamentary weight of any full state. Its economic weight is inverse to its size: a per capita GSDP of roughly Rs 6.75 lakh in 2023-24 is among the highest of any state and roughly double the national average, and it funds about 71% of its revenue receipts from its own resources rather than central transfers. Structurally it is distinctive for retaining the Portuguese Civil Code of 1867 after 1961, making it the only Indian state governed by a common civil code rather than religion-specific personal laws.

Gujarat

Gujarat is a state of the Indian Union formed on 1 May 1960, when the Bombay Reorganisation Act split the former Bombay State along linguistic lines into Gujarat and Maharashtra. It carried a population of 6.04 crore at the 2011 Census — about 5% of India — sends 26 members to the Lok Sabha and 11 to the Rajya Sabha, and is governed through a unicameral 182-seat Legislative Assembly seated at Gandhinagar, with a projected Gross State Domestic Product of Rs 29.82 lakh crore in 2025-26. Two structural features set it apart within the federation: it has enforced alcohol prohibition under the Bombay Prohibition Act, 1949 continuously since the day it was created, one of only four states to do so; and it hosts GIFT City, the site of India's first International Financial Services Centre and the seat of the Union's IFSC regulator. It also has the longest coastline of any Indian state, which makes it a frontline maritime and border state as well as an industrial one.

Haryana

Haryana is a north Indian state carved out of Punjab on 1 November 1966 under the Punjab Reorganisation Act, created along linguistic lines from the former state's Hindi-speaking southern districts. It holds roughly 25.4 million people (2011 Census) across 44,212 sq km and 22 districts, sends 10 members to the Lok Sabha and 5 to the Rajya Sabha, and legislates through a unicameral 90-seat Vidhan Sabha. Its defining structural feature is the incompleteness of the 1966 settlement: it shares its capital, Chandigarh, as a union territory with Punjab, shares a High Court with Punjab, and its claim to Ravi-Beas waters via the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal remains unexecuted six decades on. Wrapped around Delhi on three sides, its economy is concentrated in a National Capital Region belt whose fiscal weight is disproportionate to its area.

Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh is a state in the Indian Union, formed as a Chief Commissioner's Province on 15 April 1948 by integrating some thirty princely hill states, made a Union Territory in 1956, and admitted as India's eighteenth state on 25 January 1971 under the State of Himachal Pradesh Act, 1970. It is a small-weight state by federal arithmetic — a 68-seat unicameral Vidhan Sabha, four Lok Sabha seats and three Rajya Sabha seats, on a 2011 Census population of 6.86 million spread across 55,673 sq km of Himalaya. Its structural distinction is fiscal rather than constitutional: a mountain economy that is roughly 90 per cent rural, with a salary-and-pension bill that consumes a large share of revenue receipts, leaves it structurally dependent on Union transfers, and its 2025-26 budget still projected a revenue deficit of 2.5 per cent of GSDP. The state runs the standard State List — law and order, land, agriculture, health, education — but does so on terrain where hydropower, horticulture and disaster exposure, not manufacturing scale, set the fiscal terms.

Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir is a Union Territory with a legislature, created on 31 October 2019 when the former state of that name was reorganised by Act of Parliament and Ladakh was carved out as a separate, legislature-less UT. It holds a 90-seat Legislative Assembly, five Lok Sabha seats and four Rajya Sabha seats, and recorded a population of 12,267,013 in the 2011 Census over the territory that now forms the UT. What makes it structurally distinctive is that it is the only unit of the Republic to have been demoted from statehood to Union Territory status, and the only legislature-holding UT whose elected government does not control police and public order — both remain with the Union through the Lieutenant Governor. Its assembly also carries 24 seats permanently kept vacant for territory under Pakistani control.

Jharkhand

Jharkhand is a state of the Indian Union created on 15 November 2000 under the Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000, when eighteen districts of southern Bihar were constituted as a separate state with Ranchi as capital and Dumka as sub-capital. It carries 81 seats in a unicameral Legislative Assembly, 14 Lok Sabha seats and 6 Rajya Sabha seats, and a 2011 Census population of about 3.3 crore across what are now 24 districts. Its distinctive weight in the Republic is extractive: the state sits on the coal, iron ore and copper belt that supplies a large share of India's mineral output, while its per capita income runs well below the national average. Much of its territory falls under the Constitution's Fifth Schedule, which places tribal land and administration under a protective regime and gives the Governor a role no ordinary state executive shares.

Karnataka

Karnataka is a southern Indian state formed on 1 November 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act, which unified Kannada-speaking territories drawn from the princely state of Mysore, the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, Hyderabad State and Coorg; it was renamed from Mysore State to Karnataka in 1973. It is India's eighth most populous state with 61.13 million residents at the 2011 Census, sends 28 members to the Lok Sabha, and its government projected a state economy of Rs 30.70 lakh crore for 2025-26 — among the largest of any state. It is one of a minority of Indian states with a bicameral legislature: a 224-seat Legislative Assembly and a 75-seat Legislative Council, seated at the Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru. Structurally, Karnataka is distinctive on two counts: Article 371J of the Constitution gives its north-eastern Kalyana Karnataka region constitutionally entrenched reservations in state education and employment, and its capital's concentration of information-technology output makes the state a persistent claimant in disputes with the Union over tax devolution.

Kerala

Kerala is a state on India's south-western coast, formed on 1 November 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act by merging the Malayalam-speaking territories of Travancore-Cochin with the Malabar district and Kasaragod. It carries 33.4 million people (2011 Census) across 14 districts and 38,852 sq km, sends 20 members to the Lok Sabha, and legislates through a unicameral 140-member Legislative Assembly, the Kerala Niyamasabha. Its distinctive position in the Republic is a high-human-development, high-consumption economy — per capita GSDP well above the national average, near-universal literacy — run on a structurally strained budget in which salaries, pensions and interest absorb roughly three-quarters of revenue receipts.

Ladakh

Ladakh is a Union Territory of the Republic of India, carved out of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir on 31 October 2019 by the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019. It is one of only a handful of Union Territories constituted without a legislative assembly: executive authority rests with a Lieutenant Governor appointed by the President, and there is no Chief Minister or council of ministers answerable to a local legislature. With 274,289 residents at the 2011 Census across roughly 59,146 sq km, it is among the least populous but largest-by-area units of the Union, and it returns a single member to the Lok Sabha from the country's biggest parliamentary constituency by area. Its distinctive institutional feature is that elected self-government exists only below the territory level, in the two Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils at Leh and Kargil — a structure at the centre of a sustained demand for statehood and Sixth Schedule protection.

Lakshadweep

Lakshadweep is a union territory of India, constituted in 1956 as the Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands and renamed Lakshadweep in 1973. It is the Republic's smallest unit by both area and population — roughly 32 sq km of coral atoll spread across 36 islands, of which ten are inhabited, holding 64,473 people at the 2011 Census. It has no legislative assembly and no council of ministers: executive power runs through an Administrator appointed by the President, with the territory functioning as a single district. Its only elected instruments of the Union are one Lok Sabha seat reserved for Scheduled Tribes and a three-tier panchayat structure, which makes it the clearest case in the federation of a territory governed almost entirely by Union appointment rather than by a state legislature.

Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh is a state of the Indian Union formed on 1 November 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act, assembled from Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh, Bhopal State and the Sironj subdivision, with Bhopal as its capital. It is India's second-largest state by area at 308,252 sq km and its fifth-most populous, with roughly 72.6 million people at the 2011 Census, sending 29 members to the Lok Sabha and 11 to the Rajya Sabha. Its legislature is the unicameral 230-seat Vidhan Sabha at Bhopal. What makes it structurally distinctive is scale without coastline: a landlocked, resource-bearing, agriculture-weighted state whose assembly reserves 47 seats for Scheduled Tribes — the largest tribal reservation block in any Indian legislature — and which lost roughly a third of its territory and its mineral-industrial south when Chhattisgarh was carved out in 2000.

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is the Marathi-speaking state formed on 1 May 1960 when the Bombay Reorganisation Act split bilingual Bombay State into Maharashtra and Gujarat. It is India's largest state economy and its second-most populous, with 112.37 million people at the 2011 Census, 48 Lok Sabha seats and a projected 2025-26 GSDP of Rs 49.39 lakh crore. It is one of only six states with a bicameral legislature — a 288-seat Vidhan Sabha and a 78-seat Vidhan Parishad — and it keeps two capitals, Mumbai and Nagpur, with the winter session held in Nagpur. Its distinctive constitutional feature is Article 371(2), which allows the President to charge the Governor with a special responsibility for separate development boards for Vidarbha, Marathwada and the rest of Maharashtra, and for equitable allocation of development funds between them.

Manipur

Manipur is a state of the Indian Union in the north-east, formed as a full state on 21 January 1972 under the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971, after passing through Part C state and Union Territory status following its 1949 merger with India. It is small in weight — about 2.86 million people at the 2011 Census, a Gross State Domestic Product estimated at Rs 49,937 crore for 2024-25, two Lok Sabha seats and one Rajya Sabha seat — but it holds a 60-member unicameral Legislative Assembly and a long international border with Myanmar. Its defining structural feature is Article 371C of the Constitution, which mandates a Hill Areas Committee of hill-constituency MLAs within the Assembly and gives the Governor a reporting duty to the President over hill administration, formalising a valley-hill split that runs through the state's institutions. Manipur draws roughly 90% of its revenue receipts from the Centre, and the state was under President's Rule from 13 February 2025 until 4 February 2026.

Meghalaya

Meghalaya is a state of the Indian Union carved out of Assam, first as an autonomous state in April 1970 and then as a full state on 21 January 1972 under the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971. It is small in weight — about 2.97 million people at the 2011 Census across 22,429 sq km, a 60-member unicameral Legislative Assembly, two Lok Sabha seats and one Rajya Sabha seat — and its projected GSDP for 2025-26 is Rs 66,645 crore. Its capital is Shillong, and its southern and western flank is an international boundary with Bangladesh. What makes it structurally distinctive is that almost the whole state sits under the Sixth Schedule: three autonomous district councils for the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo hills hold powers over land, forests and customary law, so the state legislature is not the only law-making authority inside its own territory.

Mizoram

Mizoram is a state of the Indian Union in the north-east, carved out of Assam as a Union Territory in 1972 and elevated to full statehood on 20 February 1987 as the Republic's 23rd state under the terms of the 1986 Mizoram Peace Accord. It is among the smallest units of the federation by both population and economy — roughly 1.1 million people at the 2011 Census across 21,081 sq km, with a Gross State Domestic Product projected at about Rs 36,089 crore for 2025-26 — and it sends one member each to the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. Its legislature is a unicameral 40-member Legislative Assembly at Aizawl. What makes it structurally distinctive is Article 371G, inserted by the 53rd Constitutional Amendment, which bars Parliament from legislating on Mizo customary law, social and religious practice, and land ownership and transfer unless the state's own Assembly resolves to accept it — a constitutional veto held by very few states.

Nagaland

Nagaland is a state of the Indian Union formed on 1 December 1963 under the State of Nagaland Act, 1962, carved out of Assam's Naga Hills district and the Tuensang Frontier Division. It is one of the Republic's smallest units by weight — about 1.98 million people at the 2011 Census, a projected GSDP of roughly ₹45,020 crore in 2025-26, one Lok Sabha seat and one Rajya Sabha seat — governed by a unicameral 60-member Legislative Assembly at Kohima. Its defining structural feature is Article 371A, inserted by the Thirteenth Amendment alongside statehood, which bars Parliament from legislating for Nagaland on Naga customary law, religious and social practice, the administration of justice under customary law, and the ownership and transfer of land and its resources unless the Assembly resolves otherwise. That clause, a long-running Union-level negotiation over Naga political demands, and a statutory rather than panchayati local-government system make Nagaland a constitutional exception rather than a standard State List actor.

Odisha

Odisha is a state on India's eastern seaboard, constituted on 1 April 1936 as the first province of British India carved out on a linguistic basis, and continued as a state of the Republic after 1947. It holds about 42 million people (2011 Census), 21 Lok Sabha seats and a 147-member unicameral Legislative Assembly, with a projected GSDP of roughly Rs 10.63 lakh crore in 2025-26. Its structural distinctiveness is mineral geology and tribal constitutional status: the state sits on a large share of India's iron ore, bauxite, chromite and coal reserves, while Scheduled Tribes are 22.1% of its population and much of the mineral belt lies in Fifth Schedule areas where gram sabha consent governs land use. A 485-km coastline on the Bay of Bengal has also made cyclone administration a permanent function of the state government rather than an episodic one.

Puducherry

Puducherry is a union territory with a legislature, constituted on 1 July 1963 out of the former French establishments of Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahé and Yanam after their de facto transfer to India in 1954 and de jure cession in 1962. It is one of only three union territories with an elected assembly and a council of ministers, holding a 33-member unicameral house — 30 elected, 3 nominated by the Centre — and a single Lok Sabha seat. With about 1.25 million people at the 2011 Census and a gross state domestic product of roughly ₹52,700 crore, it is among the smallest units of the Republic by both population and output. Its defining structural feature is that it is not a state: it derives its legislature from Article 239A and the Government of Union Territories Act, 1963 rather than from the federal scheme, which makes the boundary between the elected government and the Administrator a recurring constitutional question rather than a settled one.

Punjab

Punjab is a border state of the Indian Union, constituted in its present form on 1 November 1966 when the Punjab Reorganisation Act split the earlier state into a Punjabi-speaking Punjab, a new state of Haryana, hill areas transferred to Himachal Pradesh, and Chandigarh as a Union Territory. It had 27,743,338 residents at the 2011 Census, returns 13 members to the Lok Sabha and 7 to the Rajya Sabha, and legislates through a unicameral 117-seat Vidhan Sabha that has sat in Chandigarh since 1961. Its projected GSDP for 2025-26 is Rs 8,91,301 crore. What structurally defines Punjab is that it does not exclusively own its own capital — Chandigarh remains a Union Territory serving as the shared capital of both Punjab and Haryana — and that its river waters, its border, and its grain economy each place it in permanent negotiation with the Union.

Rajasthan

Rajasthan is the largest Indian state by area and a border state of the Republic, assembled in seven stages between 1948 and 1956 out of the princely states of the Rajputana Agency and given its present boundaries by the States Reorganisation Act on 1 November 1956. It governs 68.5 million people (2011 Census) across 342,239 sq km through a unicameral 200-seat Legislative Assembly at Jaipur, and sends 25 members to the Lok Sabha. Its economy is projected at roughly ₹19.89 lakh crore of GSDP for 2025-26, split about evenly between agriculture and manufacturing at 27% each with services at 46%. What makes it structurally distinctive is the combination of an international border with Pakistan, an arid resource base that has made it India's largest solar generator, and a chronic water deficit that keeps inter-state river allocation at the centre of its politics.

Sikkim

Sikkim is the Himalayan state that joined the Indian Union on 16 May 1975 as its 22nd state, the only constituent unit of the Republic formed by absorbing a protected monarchy rather than by carving up an existing province. It is the least populous state in India, with 610,577 people at the 2011 Census, and returns a single member to the Lok Sabha and a single member to the Rajya Sabha — the smallest possible weight in Parliament. Its unicameral 32-seat Legislative Assembly is constitutionally distinctive: seats are reserved for the Bhutia-Lepcha population and one seat is elected by the Buddhist monastic community, an ecclesiastical constituency that exists nowhere else in India. Article 371F, inserted at the moment of accession, preserves the state's pre-merger laws, fixes a floor on its Assembly, and bars courts from hearing challenges to the agreements that ended the monarchy.

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is a state of the Indian Union, reconstituted on linguistic lines on 1 November 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act and renamed from Madras State to Tamil Nadu on 14 January 1969. It had 72,147,030 residents at the 2011 Census, sends 39 members to the Lok Sabha and 18 to the Rajya Sabha, and holds the second-largest state economy in India. Its legislature has been unicameral since the Legislative Council was abolished with effect from 1 November 1986, leaving a single 234-seat Legislative Assembly at Fort St. George in Chennai. Structurally, Tamil Nadu is distinctive for its 69% reservation regime, protected from judicial challenge by placement in the Ninth Schedule in 1994, and for a sustained record of testing the constitutional limits of Union and gubernatorial authority over an elected state government.

Telangana

Telangana is the 29th state of the Indian Union, formed on 2 June 2014 when the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 split the Telugu-speaking territory of united Andhra Pradesh into two states. It holds a 2011 Census population of 350.04 lakh across 112,077 sq km and 33 districts, sends 17 members to the Lok Sabha and 7 to the Rajya Sabha, and is one of a minority of Indian states with a bicameral legislature — a 119-seat Assembly and a 40-seat Council. Its defining structural features are inherited from the bifurcation: Article 371D's constitutional guarantee of local quotas in public employment and education, a capital city it held in common with Andhra Pradesh for a decade, and Union-run river boards standing between it and its neighbour over Krishna and Godavari water.

Tripura

Tripura is a state of the Indian Union in the north-east, formed as a full state on 21 January 1972 under the North-Eastern Areas Reorganisation Act, 1971, after passing from princely state to Part C state to union territory in the first quarter-century of the Republic. It is among the smallest states by area at 10,491.69 sq km and held 36,73,917 people at the 2011 Census, returning 2 members to the Lok Sabha and 1 to the Rajya Sabha from a 60-seat unicameral legislature. Its defining structural feature is geographic near-enclosure: 856 km of its boundary is the international border with Bangladesh, leaving a narrow land connection to the rest of India and making the state's trade, transport and security arrangements a matter of Union policy rather than state policy alone. Its second defining feature is internal: roughly two-thirds of its territory is administered by the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, giving the state a second elected tier whose relationship with the state government is a standing constitutional question.

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state of the Indian Republic and the single largest bloc in its Parliament, formed on 26 January 1950 when the United Provinces were renamed under the new Constitution. It runs a bicameral legislature — a 403-seat Vidhan Sabha and a Vidhan Parishad — from its capital at Lucknow, and its Gross State Domestic Product is projected at Rs 30.8 lakh crore for 2025-26. Its distinctive structural fact is arithmetic rather than constitutional: with 80 Lok Sabha seats, no Union government has been formed without contending with Uttar Pradesh, which gives the state a weight in national politics that no special provision confers on it. It is also a state defined by subtraction — the hill districts were carved out as Uttaranchal in November 2000, leaving the Gangetic plain core.

Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand is the Republic's 27th state, carved out of Uttar Pradesh on 9 November 2000 as Uttaranchal and renamed in 2007. It is a small unit by federal weight — about 10.09 million people at the 2011 Census, a 70-seat unicameral Vidhan Sabha, five Lok Sabha seats and three in the Rajya Sabha — governing 53,483 sq km of Himalaya and Gangetic terai across 13 districts. Its distinctive feature is a state that has never settled where it is governed from: Dehradun remains the provisional capital while Bhararisain, near Gairsain in the hills, was notified as the summer capital in June 2020. It also holds an international frontier with China and Nepal, and in 2024 became the first Indian state to legislate a Uniform Civil Code.

West Bengal

West Bengal is an eastern state of the Indian Union, constituted on 15 August 1947 when the province of Bengal was partitioned and its Hindu-majority western districts remained in India. It is the country's fourth-most-populous state, with 91.3 million people at the 2011 Census, and returns 42 members to the Lok Sabha and 16 to the Rajya Sabha — one of the largest state blocs in Parliament. Its legislature is the unicameral 294-seat Legislative Assembly at Kolkata; the Legislative Council was abolished by an Act of Parliament in 1969 and has never been revived. Structurally, the state is defined by its border: it carries 2,217 km of the 4,096 km India–Bangladesh boundary, more than half the total, which makes state administration inseparable from Union subjects of immigration, border management and citizenship.