Though the country’s population as per 2001 census is 102.86 crore, the Election Commission (EC) is following the 1971 census which pegs the population at 54.93 crore, to calculate the value of the vote of each member of the Legislative Assembly.
Interestingly, the population control policy has been cited as a reason for following the 1971 census statistics.
Why population figures required?
The population of each state is required to determine the value of the vote of each Member of the Legislative Assembly. As per Article 55 of the Constitution, every MLA will have as many votes as there are multiples of one thousand in the quotient obtained by dividing the population of the state by the total number of the elected members of the Assembly.
For example, in Karnataka value of each MLA’s vote is calculated as follows:
The population of the State - that is 2,92,99,014 as per 1971 census - is divided by the product of  total number of MLAs multiplied with 1,000 (that is 224X1000). This calculation puts the value of each MLA’s vote in Karnataka at 131.
If  the State’s population is considered as 5,28,50,562 as per 2001 census, the  value of each MLA’s vote would be 235. Similarly, the value of each MLA’s vote in differnt states would vary depending on the rise in population over last three decades.
Why 36-year-old population figures?
The Parliament brought the 84th amendment to the Constitution in 2001 for considering population figures of 1971 census for presidential election till 2026.
Earlier, it was proposed to take the population figure as per the census after the year 2000.
Mr Arun Jaitely, who was Law Minister in 2001, told Deccan Herald that the House at that point of time thought that the states which have failed in population control would get weightage if the recent population figures were considered and those effectively controlling population would be affected in terms number of votes per MLA.
He said it was on this rationale that the old population figures were considered till 2026 as a motivational measure to encourage state governments to pursue the agenda for population stabilisation or discourage population growth.

ELECTION TODAY
The polling for the presidential election in the State to be held at Vidhana Soudha, on Thursday is being videographed for the first time. Apart from the legislators, four members of the Parliament will caste their votes in the polling booth, set up at room no.106 of the Vidhana Soudha between 10 am and 5 pm.
Four members of the Parliament — Ambarish, Manorama Madhawaraj, Rajeev Chandrashekar and S Mallikarjunaiah have requested the State Returning Officer to make arrangements for casting their votes in Bangalore, instead of the Parliament House in New Delhi, where normally MPs caste their votes. Though both the legislators and MPs will drop their ballot in the same box they would be provided with ballot papers of different colours as the value of the vote of an MP is more than the value of a legislator.

FORMULA
*Value of each MLA’s vote =  Population of a State (as in 1971 ) divided by 1000 x (number of MLAs)