State Parties in India: Parliamentary Presence & Performance

The period between 19892009 was one of growth and ascendancy of State parties in India. Using a combination of strategies of caste based political mobilisation and electoral alliances, these parties expanded their horizon and emerged as dominant players in national politics. In the process, they contributed to deepening India’s electoral democracy. But, why do people vote for State parties, which are local or regional,to the Parliament? How are State parties and their Members in the Parliament different from that of national parties?What and how do State party members represent their constituencies and their interest in the Parliament? This bookattempts to answer some of these perplexing questions on the basis of an empirical study of the 14th Lok Sabha. Drawing data from a variety of primary sources, the book attempts to unravel the social bases of State parties, the parliamentary performance of their members, the dialectics between electoral choice and party performance within theinstitutional framework of national politics. It becomes evident that State parties in India attempt to provide a distinct discursive terrain and an alternative imagination of representation that synthesizes representation of identity with more functional requirements of Parliamentaryfunctioning.