Understanding Regional Parties

SETTING A RESEARCH AGENDA

DECEMBER 2021
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An Analysis of State-level Parties in India:

Setting a Research Agenda
Published in December 2021 by Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
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An Analysis of State-level Parties
in India:

Setting a Research Agenda

DECEMBER 2021

AN ANALYSIS OF STATE-LEVEL PARTIES CENTRE FOR POLICY RESEARCH | 2021
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABOUT CPR.............................................................................. I
THE TEAM............................................................................... II
ABBREVIATIONS..................................................................... III
ABOUT THE PARTNERSHIP..................................................... IV
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY........................................................... V
INTRODUCTION........................................................................ 1
CHANGING NATURE OF REGIONAL PARTIES AND PARTY
SYSTEMS: BROAD TRENDS....................................................... 2
CHANGING DYNAMICS OF REGIONAL VS. REGIONALIST
PARTIES................................................................................... 3
ORGANISATION, LEADERSHIP AND PARTY FORMATION
IN REGIONAL PARTIES.............................................................. 5
THE DECLINE OF THE POLITICAL LEFT................................ 8
FUTURE SCOPE OF RESEARCH................................................. 10
REGIONAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY.............................. 10
NEED TO STUDY "FOURTH PARTY SYSTEM" BEYOND THE
DOMINANCE OF THE BJP................................................... 12
CONCLUSION...........................................................................14
REFERENCES.............................................................................15
APPENDIX................................................................................18
i.
ABOUT
The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) has been one of India’s leading public policy think tanks since 1973. The
Centre is a non- profit, non-partisan independent institution dedicated to ethical and high-quality scholarship
on all aspects and processes that shape life in India.
CPR fosters a community of distinguished academics and practitioners committed to its values of robust public
discussion. Through different verticals of research, the Centre engages in questions of economic policy, state
capacity and governance, law and state regulation and domestic and international politics. These verticals, while
separate in their functioning, often have overlapping research interests, which promotes Centre- wide dialogue
and collective intervention in India's policy domain.
The vibrant community at CPR regularly collaborates with the central and state governments, civil society
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sphere, where it is known to lead conversations from the front.
The Politics Initiative is a new addition at the Centre. The team aims to examine questions of political economy
in a rapidly changing India. This report provides a snap-shot of their work in the previous year. The team
members regularly write commentaries in leading media outlets, a comprehensive summary of which is
available on the CPR website.
i.
TEAM
PROJECT COORDINATOR
Rahul Verma. Fellow
RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
Amal Jose Phillip

Asim Ali
Dhruv Beri
Jatin Rajani
Niyati Singh
Rupak Kumar
Shamik Vatsa
Shantanu Kulshrestha
Vaibhav Parik
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS
Abdul Najah
Ilika Trivedi
Nishant Ranjan
COMMUNICATION & DESIGN SUPPORT
Atul Kumar Verma

Dhruv Bhasin
Sristi Bhatt
Praveen D'Souza
ADMINISTRATION SUPPORT
Puneet Aggarwal
ii.
ABBREVIATIONS
AIADMK – All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

BJD – Biju Janata Dal
BJP – Bhartiya Janata Party
BSP – Bahujan Samaj Party
CPI – Communist Party of India
CPI-ML - Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation
CPI(M) – Communist Party of India (Marxist), also referred to as CPM
DMK- Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
HLD - Haryana Lok Dal
INC – Indian National Congress, also referred to as Congress
INLD – Indian National Lok Dal
JD(S) – Janata Dal (Secular)
JD(U) – Janata Dal (United)
NC – National Conference
NCP – Nationalist Congress Party
NDA – National Democratic Alliance
OBC – Other Backward Castes
RJD – Rashtriya Janata Dal
RLD – Rashtriya Lok Dal
SAD - Shiromani Akali Dal
SP – Samajwadi Party
SS – Shiv Sena
TDP – Telgu Desam Party
TMC – Trinamool Congress
UP – Uttar Pradesh
UPA – United Progressive Alliance
CPR-RLS PROJECT 2021
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started as a pilot project in 2019 has matured in its third year to become a comprehensive research output
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1
Regional parties in India have been gaining ground in state and national politics since the late 1980s. This period is seen as a
transition phase in Indian politics where the Indian National Congress declined both nationally and, in the states, and single
state and multi-state regional parties began consolidating (Yadav, 2000). However, since 2014, the electoral and
ideological power of many of the regional parties has been on the decline with the emergence of what is termed as the fourth
party system (Vaishnav and Hinston, 2019)—the electoral and ideological dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
This decline has not only led to existential threats for some parties but has also strained the political diversity of the country.
And yet, regional parties and regional politics have continued to survive, adapting to local and national changes, and
influencing such changes themselves.
This paper is the result of 12 fortnightly workshops conducted by the Centre for Policy Research, Delhi in collaboration with
the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung on ‘State-level Political Parties in India’. The focus is on examining the changing nature of
regional parties in India. The 2021 elections in four states and a union territory, and the upcoming 2022 elections in some
major states of the country, make this inquiry even more relevant. While elections provide us an avenue to understand the
electoral implications of regional party formations, such a study is also imperative given that party power in non-electoral
times defines the federal relationships around governance, and importantly, the nature of the state. This paper, thus,
attempts to understand state parties and state party systems in the context of contemporary changes, and aims to map out
scope for future research and relevant approaches.
We would, in particular, like to thank K.K.Kailash for his support in conducting these workshops. Thanks also to the many
experts who have been a part of this journey. A list of speakers, photos from the sessions as well as a summary of the final
workshop which sets the agenda for future discussions may be found in the Appendix.
INTRODUCTION
1
Regional parties in India have been gaining ground in state and national politics since the late 1980s. This period
is seen as a transition phase in Indian politics where the Indian National Congress declined both nationally and,
in the states, and single state and multi-state regional parties began consolidating (Yadav, 2000). However,
since 2014, the electoral and ideological power of many of the regional parties has been on the decline with the
emergence of what is termed as the fourth party system (Vaishnav and Hinston, 2019)—the electoral and
ideological dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). This decline has not only led to existential threats for
some parties but has also strained the political diversity of the country. And yet, regional parties and regional
politics have continued to survive, adapting to local and national changes, and influencing such changes
themselves.
In this paper, we will focus on examining the changing nature of regional parties in India. The recently concluded
2021 elections in four states and a union territory, which saw the decline as well as resilience of regional and
national parties, as well as the upcoming 2022 elections in some of the most major states of the country, make
this inquiry even more relevant. While elections provide us an avenue to understand the electoral implications of
regional party formations, such a study is also imperative given that party power in non-electoral times defines
the federal relationships around governance, and importantly, the nature of the state. This paper, thus, attempts
to understand state parties and state party systems in the context of contemporary changes, and aims to map
out scope for future research and relevant approaches.
This document is a result of the fortnightly workshops conducted by the Centre for Policy Research, Delhi in
collaboration with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung on ‘State-level Political Parties in India’. The workshop
comprised twelve sessions starting with an introductory session in July and concluding with a wrap-up session in
December. The workshops were invite-only closed-door events meant to facilitate candid discussions from
domain experts for specific state-level political parties. Each session was conducted in a moderated discussion
format lasting about 90-minutes. We requested a few participants to make the opening remarks in each session,
and after that, the floor was open for comments and questions. Along with insights from the workshops, we used
a provisional dataset of 400 parties that we created to understand the process of party formation and trajectories
in India’s states.
This paper is divided into two sections. Section 1 maps the broad trends and changes taking place in regional
parties and regional party systems along three fronts. It first looks at the shifts within existing notions of regional
and regionalist parties, and the blurring of lines between the two. The second subsection is a study of the
organisation and leadership of regional parties—specifically around the characteristic centralisation of
leadership and lineal succession within many of these parties.
1. While the two terms carry distinct yet not wholly separate meanings, we will be using Regional and State-level interchangeably.

1.
In undertaking this study, this subsection argues that party fragmentation and formation under such centralised
leadership, usually around a single figure or family, has deep implications for party life and leadership
ascendancy. The third subsection analyses the decline of the ‘political left’ to argue that while the left continues to
be active within India’s civil society and movement space, it has been all but wiped from the political arena. In its
place, various state-level parties have co-opted the left’s appeal around welfarism without the radical political
agenda of left parties, thus reducing the space for its immediate revival.
Section 2 takes a more forward-looking view to argue for increased academic and civil society focus on regional
parties and party systems. It maps two important scopes: the implications of changes within regional party
systems for Indian democracy, and the role of regional parties within the fourth party system. In the first
subsection, we trace the context and existing notions of regional party proliferation to show how regional parties
have deepened as well as fragmented India’s democracy. Subsection two grounds possible research in the context
of the emerging consensus among scholars that India is entering a “fourth party system”. Here we argue that there
is a need for the study of regional party systems and their linkages to national systems. Furthermore, using data,
we show that regional parties continue to be resilient even under BJP dominance.
The Changing Nature of Regional Parties and Party Systems: Broad Trends
The formation of regional parties is incentivized by the geographic concentration of social groups in specific
regions (Brancati, 2008). In India, the fragmentation of the party system has gone along with the regionalization
of the party system. The former means that political parties have started representing the interests of narrow
groups based on identities such as caste and community, while the latter reflects the proliferation of regional
parties. According to Prakash Sarangi (2001), the common denominator between both these processes is that they
were both reinforced by the process of economic reforms. Moreover, regional parties seemed to have worked well
in the context of the ideological de-polarisation of the 1990s, a time where ideological differences had narrowed
between various parties, and there was large-scale economic, and social consensus. The present trend of party
system consolidation, with caste and sub-national identities possibly becoming less salient with time with the
emergence of an aspirational urban middle class, as well as renewed ideological polarisation, has consequently
narrowed the manoeuvring space for regional parties (Sarangi, 2001).
In an interesting analysis of party aggregation in India and the United States, Chhibber and Kollmann (1998)
found that party aggregation takes place in the context of economic centralization when economic power is
concentrated in the hands of central governments as opposed to state governments. This is because economic
centralization incentivizes elites to focus on coming to power nationally. Conversely, a decline in economic
centralization leads to a decline in party aggregations.
The dominance of the Congress system is often seen as reflecting the power of the upper caste middle class in
urban areas, who provided the intellectual justification for the broad Congress alliance, as did large upper-caste
landowners in the rural areas. The Mandal movement in the 1980s also gave a vocabulary of social justice that
inaugurated a new phase of backward caste
2.
politics. The rise of OBC politics in the late '80s was expressed in the form of the rise of regional parties since
2
caste operates at the local or regional level in India (Dirks, 2001). The dominant peasant castes in many of these
states formed the nucleus of the new regional parties since they were often socially, numerically and
economically the most powerful caste. These OBC parties organized other OBCs, and sometimes Dalits, under
the leadership of these dominant castes. These castes included the Yadavs in Bihar and UP (RJD & SP), the Jats in
the RLD in Western UP, the Marathas in Maharashtra (Shiv Sena and NCP), the Kammas in Andhra Pradesh
(TDP), and the Vokkaligas in Karnataka (JD(S)).
However, with time, many of these parties which were initially representing a coalition of OBC groups, started
competing with each other over resources. More specifically, they started mobilizing against the dominant
peasant caste community, often turning towards the BJP. With the consolidation of the Hindu vote, as we are
seeing, is the future of the regional parties under threat, or will they find a new imagination to stitch together
broader caste or class alliances?
Changing Dynamics of Regional vs Regionalist Parties
The 2014 general elections saw a phenomenal increase in the BJP’s seat share–from 116 to 282, allowing the party
to form an independent government without having to rely on their coalition partners in the National
Democratic Alliance (NDA) for constant support. At the same time, the 2014 elections also saw an increase in the
seats of parties like the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Trinamool Congress (TMC), and
Biju Janata Dal (BJD), and a decline in the seats won by parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and
Samajwadi Party (SP). In his explanation of these changes, K.K Kailash (2014) has drawn a distinction between
regionally-located and regionalist parties. While Kailash defines the former as structurally and spatially located
in a region, the latter is defined by three types of claims: demands against the centre, protection of regional
pride, culture, and identity, and a higher devolution of power between the centre and the state (Kailash, 2014).
The regionally-located parties do not necessarily have any regional or state-specific agenda. They are regional
only because they compete and win only in limited territories. These include parties like the BSP, SP, RJD, JD(U),
among others. Regionalist parties, however, have a clear and identifiable programmatic vision or plan for the
territories they contest. The TDP, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam,
Shiv Sena, Shiromani Akali Dal and the National Conference are among the prominent regionalist parties. Taken
together with BJP’s performance in states where regionalist parties were strong, this definition explained why
some state-level parties performed better than others in 2014. However, since 2019, this dynamic has shifted.
Aiyar and Tillin (2019) have shown that the BJP bettered its strike rate in places where it was directly competing
with non-Congress parties from 49% to 68%. Further, it performed well even in states like West Bengal and
Assam which were considered regionalist strongholds (Kailash, 2014). The subsequent state elections of 2019
and 2021 in Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, where it managed to replace the Communists and the Congress,
and in Assam–where it came to power once again, have furthered this "regionalization” of the party.
2. For more on this, see Brass’s (1980) work on the politicisation of the peasantry in North India and its impact on the regionalisation of Janata Party in UP, Jaffrelot (2003)
on the rise of Yadavs in UP, Pingle (2001) on Kammas and Reddys in Karnataka, among others.
3.
Here, it should be clarified that the idea that regional parties demonstrate a lack of support for Indian
national identity is also problematic since it assumes that all regional parties communicate in the same
way. In fact, most of the regional parties that exploded onto the scene in the 1990s have roots in national
parties, such as the Congress or the now-defunct Janata Dal. Many of these groups emphasise national
grievances, demands, or identities in their speeches, while others, such as the Nationalist Congress Party
and the Samajwadi Party, openly embrace national ambitions.
Furthermore, regional parties are not to blame for ushering in the coalition period. The collapse of the
Congress, as well as the disintegration of the previous Janata Party, ensured that no single political party
could achieve a majority on its own. National parties, such as the BJP and the Janata Dal, benefited from
the Congress' election losses in the late 1980s and early 1990s, rather than regional parties. The emergence
of regional parties in the 1990s did not truly begin until after the Congress had fallen out of favour and the
coalition era had begun. Regional parties have benefited from coalition politics, but they were not the ones
who brought it about.
At the same time, there has been a shift in regional and regionalist parties as well. Indeed, the decimation
of the Congress at the national level has meant that opposition politics, regardless of regional appeals, has
largely been fought at the level of state politics. The recent entry of the TMC into the electoral fray in Goa
and Tripura, and the distinct Punjabi identity taken up by the Congress before the 2022 Punjab elections
are cases in point. During the 2021 West Bengal elections, the TMC, when it was in direct opposition to the
BJP, actively associated itself with regionalist tendencies around a Bengali identity, painting the BJP as an
outsider. It sought to use its regionalist credentials: centre-state devolution, projection of identity, and
demands against the centre to create a narrower Bengali “ethno-linguistic” identity as against the broader
Hindutva appeal of the BJP (Nath, 2019). After its victory however, the party has expanded into many more
states including Goa and Meghalaya, taking aspects of its regionalist appeals and merging them with
locally existent political cultures. The Congress in Punjab on the other hand has moved away from its broad
catch-all tendencies in the favour of regionalism: Punjabi identity, centre-state relations, and opposition to
an institutionalised central BJP.
Within the “fourth party system” (Vaishnav and Hinston, 2019) thus, there is a need to understand regional
vs regionalist parties as including oppositional “thinking across” during a time of hegemonic
institutionalisation of the centre by the BJP, and the impacts such an institutionalisation has in the context
of building local identities in the face of the BJP’s Hindutva identity.
The graph below shows details about key active parties across states, excluding the national parties BJP and
INC. These are parties who are primary players in a state’s electoral system and have achieved a 5% seat
share on at least two occasions. They are also currently active (which implies that they have contested at
least one of the two most recent elections in the state). What is evident is that in all these states, there are
at least 2 additional players competing besides the BJP or Congress, thus indicating the presence of strong
regional alternatives.
4.
Organisation, Leadership, and Party formation in Regional Parties
State-level parties have played an important role across party systems, and significantly more so over the last
three decades. Most scholarly work around these parties, however, continues to focus on their role within larger
party systems, either as mobilizers or as coalition partners. This has limited the understanding of state-level
parties as organizations and entities in themselves and led to a gap in the literature between their creation and
decline.
A line of commonality running through all these parties is that they are led and controlled by a single leader
whose power over party operations is unquestionable. Given party centralisation around a single authority,
immediate family members and relatives generally hold a lot of importance within the organisation due to their
direct linkages. This phenomenon is observable even in parties that justified their existence on ideological
grounds, as the case of the Dravidian parties and the Akali Dal shows. As a result, under normal circumstances,
the longevity of such parties is strongly linked to the longevity of their particular leaders and clans. While some
parties, such as the Samajwadi Party, have successfully transitioned to new leadership, the future of others, such
as the Trinamool Congress, Janata Dal (United), and others, remains questionable.
5.
The 96-year-old SAD has ruled Punjab on many occasions. However, after Parkash Singh Badal became the
fourth SAD chief minister of Punjab in 1970, the party's authority was gradually transferred to his family.
Sukhbir Singh Badal, Prakash Singh Badal's son, was at one point both the deputy chief minister and the
party's president. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Sukhbir Singh Badal's wife, was a minister in Narendra Modi's BJP-
led cabinet. Former Deputy Prime Minister and two-time Chief Minister of Haryana, Chaudhary Devi Lal
formed the Haryana Lok Dal (HLD) in October 1996. In 1998, the HLD became the Indian National Lok Dal.
The party’s leadership is drawn heavily from Devi Lal’s family, including its current leader and former Chief
Minister Om Prakash Chautala, who is Devi Lal’s son.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), created in 1949 as a breakaway party of the Dravidar Kazhagam
led by Periyar E.V. Ramasami and the first non-Congress Chief Minister C M Annadurai, won the assembly
elections in Tamil Nadu in 1967. The DMK has gone through numerous changes since then, including a split
in 1972 when its treasurer, M G Ramachandran, a prominent film actor, created the All India Anna Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). In the state, these two parties have alternated in control. Both parties,
while being heavily centralised around a leader, have taken different routes in terms of their succession.
After Annadurai’s death in 1969, the leadership of the DMK passed to M. Karunanidhi who was the party’s
leader from 1969 to 2018. His son, M.K Stalin, the current chief minister of Tamil Nadu, was able to take up
the reins with little resistance (led mostly by his brother), and mobilise the party’s base for the 2021 state
elections. Unlike the DMK, the AIADMK has not had any significant family entrenchment at the top.
However, succession in the party has been closely linked to personal connection and the perception of the
“righteous heir” to the previous leader (Pandian and Geetha V, 1989).
The All-India Trinamool Congress (TMC), led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, is similar to
other regional parties in the state. It's also an organisation centred around a single individual. Banerjee's
magnetism helped the party reclaim power in the state early this year, beating the Left parties which had
ruled for more than three decades, as well as the BJP (Bhattacharyya, 2011). The immense level of
centralisation in the party, and its appeal being tied to Banerjee’s person, however, has also meant the non-
existence of any significant second-generation leadership. While Mamata Banerjee has tried to project her
nephew, Abhishek Banerjee as a successor, there is still a long way to go to cement such a line of succession.
Lastly, given that state-level parties are largely consolidated around a unitary central authority: individual,
family, or clan, the ability of the party machinery to create mechanisms for dispute resolutions and
arbitration amongst various sub-groups and individuals who might not belong to this clique is severely
limited. In reality, this has meant that Indian parties are prone to splits, either creating new parties or new
political entrepreneurs who go on to create new parties. Fig 2, based on our provisional dataset of 400
parties, classifies the nature of a party’s emergence in one of the following three categories -
6.
A New Party is one whose origins do not lie in any previous political party. While members can be
inspired by or individually have been a part of other parties, we consider a party as new if it does not
have substantial ties to any previous party in terms of legislators/office bearers.
A Splinter party is one which split from a previously existing party. For a party to be considered a
splinter in our case, it must show that its founder as well as a certain number of legislators/office
bearers from the party jumped ship to the splinter group. E.g. - the various Congress factions or Janata
Dal factions
A Successor party is one which takes the mantle from a previously existing party and is distinguished
from a splinter in such a manner that a successor receives the assent of a majority of the
legislators/office bearers of the previous party. In essence, it can then lay claim to continuing the legacy
of the party it succeeds that a splinter necessarily cannot. E.g. - the BJP as the successor of the Jana
Sangh.
Based on provisional data from about 400 effective parties since 1962, we find that the numbers of new parties
and splinter parties are quite similar to one another, while only a handful of successor parties exist. This implies
that many parties that go on to become effective are not entirely new, and there are a significant number of key
parties in states that have links to older national parties. This is especially true for the several parties that split
from the Congress, or the ones that emerged through the break-up of the Janata parivar of parties.
7.
The Decline of the Political Left
The CPM arose from a split in the Communist Party of India (CPI) in 1964, subsequently overtaking the latter to
become the country's largest communist party. Today, however, things are very different for the CPM, which is
on track to complete sixty years of existence. The CPM's national vote share and seat share are at their lowest
levels ever. The Left's national footprint has likewise been reduced. In 1991, the two major Left parties won Lok
Sabha seats in nine states. They are now only found in three states (effectively as per their seats in the Parliament
or role as primary opposition): West Bengal, Kerala, and Tripura. And, unlike in 1964, when the CPM gained
popularity at the expense of the CPI, no new or existing communist party has been able to gain traction in recent
years.
While there have been challenges like failing to expand outside traditional bases and a lack of young people
joining high ranks both repeating themes in the past for their abysmal results (Kishore, 2017), the party's main
challenge now is to overcome its troubles in West Bengal, where it was in government from 1977 to 2011. The
same state appears to have become the CPM's Waterloo now, with the party losing ground in the state
continuously since 2008 (Kishore, 2015). CPM's seats dropped dramatically in the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha
elections, owing mostly to declining numbers from West Bengal, which used to make up a substantial part of the
party's parliamentary seat share. The Left's fall in West Bengal must be viewed against the backdrop of the
agitation in Singur and Nandigram over land acquisition for an industrial project (Kishore, 2017). The Left Front
suffered its first major setback in the 2008 panchayat elections after these protests and the deaths of farmers in
a police shooting in Nandigram in March 2008. Ever since then, the Left has suffered massive defeats in West
Bengal where it was unable to win even a single seat in 2021. While the CPM, particularly the West Bengal
leadership, has come under fire from Leftists for its land acquisition policies, the party's state unit has claimed
that the top leadership was not to blame for the incidents in both places (Kishore, 2017). The Nandigram events
were described as the consequence of "unnecessary initiatives by a portion of the local leadership" in a note
accepted by the CPM's West Bengal State Conference in February 2015 titled “The Left Front government in West
Bengal: Evolution of an Experience” (Kishore, 2015).
Since the 1990s, the Left's popularity in many parts of India has been severely weakened by caste politics and the
weakening of labour unions in metropolitan areas (Roychowdhury, 2018). Despite this, the CPM remained the
most powerful party in West Bengal, Kerala, and Tripura. Contractors and intermediaries, according to
Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya (2016), have taken control of the CPM's rural organization as a result of the steady
churning in West Bengal's rural economy and society. Their concerns were not the same as those of the
impoverished in rural areas. The rise in land purchase for industrialization benefited the former. The latter were
worried about losing their only source of income and were becoming increasingly alienated as the local Left
leadership refused to empathize with their concerns. his indicates the ill-effects of a top-down approach when it
comes to decision making in a party, especially the ones which have only one or two states that they can hold on
to.
8.
The cadres of such parties have to be far more receptive to the grassroots than those of larger parties because
while larger parties can afford a few lapses here and there in the long run, the smaller ones just cannot. It
appears that because the party’s upper-leadership either didn’t act on the right feedback it received from its
cadres on the ground or maybe the cadre itself had lost sight of what the party was meant to do for the people. In
Bhattacharya's work, there are numerous examples of this type. They all point to the same thing. Those
responsible for bringing the Left's politics to the masses had little reason to practice what they preached.
Increasing economic distress along with a job crisis has affected regional politics more strongly than national
politics. As the political scientist Sajjan Kumar has argued, regional political parties are loath to do ‘us vs them’
politics anymore, based on identity-based cleavages (Kumar, 2020). YSR Jaganmohan Reddy unleashed a much
publicized “jobs mega drive” where the government hired 141,000 people in the village secretariat at once, which
was touted as a record. Tejaswi Yadav promised to provide 10 lakh jobs to the youth of Bihar, through
employment by the state. One of the first acts of Dushyant Chautala as Deputy CM was to push for a 75% job
quota for locals. Academic literature has long established the link between prolonged economic crisis and the
appeal of economic populism (Kaltwasser, 2017, Broz, 2021, Lisi, 2019). This means that not only will prominent
parties engage with questions of economic justice, but that it also revivals old class fault lines. This statement
almost axiomatically means that there is considerable potential political space for the Parliamentary Left—
particularly the CPI (M) and CPI—to mobilize on, and renew itself. Their performance in the last Bihar elections
where CPI-ML won 12 seats and was recognised as a state party, certainly seem to suggest their obituaries were
written rather prematurely.
The Left politics in India comprises two complementary but separate aspects of activism and elections. While
electorally, left parties have struggled to remain relevant, left activism in the country has not faced the same
fate. In fact, in recent mass protests by farmers, students, minorities and women, the Left presence has been
markedly visible. This dichotomy raises important questions regarding the future of Left politics in India: first,
how should the party structure be revamped to accommodate contemporary class concerns, as a simple
dichotomy of state versus market or labour versus capital would not capture the current moment? Second, where
would the Left parties position themselves in the opposition spectrum against the BJP? Third, how does the
leadership question get played out among party officials, who are long overdue a change of guard?
9.
FUTURE SCOPE OF RESEARCH
As this paper has shown thus far, regional parties and party systems have undergone significant changes
that continue to be under-studied, and whose implications need to be better understood. Drawing from the
broad trends and changes discussed in section 1, this section divides the future scope of research around
regional parties within two thematic areas. Sub-section 2.1 looks at Democracy—with a specific focus on
the implications, nature, origins, and influence of regional or state-level parties. Sub-section 2.2 takes a
data driven approach around the “fourth party system” and argues that apart from BJP dominance, there is
scope for regionalised and localised studies to capture the shifts within India’s current party system.
Regional parties and Democracy
As India’s democratic politics has matured and deepened, various social cleavages have emerged on the
political scene. These cleavages—ethnic, caste-based, religious, linguistic or regionalist—have led to the
creation of various parties representing their needs and aspirations from the state. While some political
cleavages around linguistic and regional identities have histories going back to the independence struggle,
others rooted in regionalism and middle caste solidarity emerged in the 1960s, during what has been
characterised as the “first democratic upsurge” (Yadav, 1996) Through the use of regional political parties,
an increasing number of citizens began to participate in political processes. Emerging prominently in the
1990s, lower castes and lower classes used electoral machinery to bury the instruments of their
exploitation. This is referred to as 'The Second Democratic Upsurge' by Yogendra Yadav (2000) and 'The
Silent Revolution' by Christophe Jaffrelot (2003). The rise of parties like the SP, Akali Dal, BSP, INLD, DMK,
and JD(S) indicate a move towards this aspiration that newer groups were seeking representation in
governance and state formation through state level parties.
The two levels of politics that these national and state level parties operate with do not work
independently of each other. Indeed, both national level and state level party systems heavily influence
each other. State level party systems are shaped by both local issues and incentives, as well as national
trends and changes, and vice versa. This is exemplified by the state of Tamil Nadu where a national party
like the BJP fails to make inroads or even activate its modus operandi of caste mobilisation, given that the
state’s party system does not have any castes to be politically mobilised (Narayan, 2021). However, even
with virtually no large base and its perception as a north Indian party, the BJP had an outsized
representation amongst candidates due to its alliance with AIADMK for the 2021 state elections. Thus,
while it is true that unlike the third party system of coalition politics, state level parties are marginalised in
their influence on the national system, such processes of influencing continue to be carried out beyond
central-level politics through other pathways. In this context, it is important to understand regional parties
and their implications for Indian democracy.
10.
The presence of a vast number of regional parties is one of the most noticeable elements of the Indian Party
System. By regional party, we mean a political party that operates primarily within a small geographic area and
whose activities are limited to a single or a few states. Furthermore, unlike national parties, which represent a
wide range of various interests, regional parties represent the interests of a specific region. To put it another way,
regional parties differ from All India parties in terms of their worldview and the issues they pursue. Their efforts
are focused on specific regional challenges, and they operate within a limited geographic area.
The word "regionalism" has two meanings. Its negative connotation suggests strong loyalty to one's home region
over the country or state. In a positive sense, it is a political quality related to people's passion for their territory,
culture, language, and other aspects of their identity in order to protect their independence. If regionalism has a
positive attribute to it then it is a good thing in the long run since it enables individuals to establish a sense of
brotherhood and commonality based on shared language, religion, or history. In general, the term "regionalism"
has been used in a negative light in India. Regionalism can emerge as a result of the state's continued neglect of a
region, or as a result of greater rights-based awareness among people who have been discriminated against
(political consciousness), as has often been argued by parties that have a social justice agenda.
Despite the fact that regional parties operate in a fairly small area and have only a few objectives, they have
played an important role in both state and national politics. Regional political parties formed governments in
numerous states and attempted to put their policies and programs into action. DMK and AIADMK in Tamil
Nadu; National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir; Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh; Asom Gana Parishad in
Assam; Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party in Goa; Mizo National Front in Mizoram; Sikkim Sangram Parishad in
Sikkim; All Party Hill Leaders Conference in Meghalaya; and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in Haryana are some
important regional parties. Following the fourth national elections in 1967, some regional parties became
coalition partners in numerous states. Regional parties have also played a major role in assisting the formation
of the Congress government at the national level several times. Indira Gandhi's government was supported by
the DMK, a regional party, following the party split in 1969, allowing her to continue in power despite a loss of
majority in the parliament. Telugu Desam was the United Front's, and later the National Democratic Alliance's,
pillar of strength. Regional party members aim to influence the government's policies to promote their own
interests by focusing the attention of the Parliament on issues in their region (Misra, 2016).
Regional parties, as is commonly assumed, do not form in a vacuum. They form in the context of regional
identities and demands which are often ignored within the broader political system. As a result, regional parties
serve as a means through which a discourse on cultural identity is converted into political assertiveness.
However, this is a highly simplified view of the situation. These 'cultural specificities' are sometimes created by
regional parties in order to gain political advantage. In some ways, they are 'ethnic capitalists,' as they generate
demand and a market where none previously existed. Regional parties are thus not always a product of regional
identities, but they can establish and strengthen regional identities for electoral purposes.
11.
Need to Study "Fourth party System" beyond the Dominance of the BJP
In India, we have a single-member district election system that rewards the political parties with the most
electoral districts. An example provided by Adam Ziegfeld (2014) mentions that the BJP's vote in 2014 was
distributed around the country, which benefited them. In a number of states where it is disproportionately
strong, the BJP was the most popular party in district after district, but not always by a wide majority. In Uttar
Pradesh, India's largest state, the BJP, for example, garnered around 42 percent of the vote (Ziegfeld, 2014).
However, it was anticipated to win 71 of Uttar Pradesh's 80 seats due to the remaining 58 percent of the vote
being split among other parties (almost 90 percent). Meanwhile, the BJP did poorly in states where it only
secured a few seats. As a consequence, only a small fraction of the BJP's votes was wasted, that is, the votes cast
in electoral districts where the party lost a parliamentary seat. As a result, the party was able to achieve a
parliamentary majority despite a low vote share. With fewer than 40% of the vote, no party has ever won a
parliamentary majority. Meanwhile, the Congress was humiliated, due in part to a very evenly divided vote
throughout the country (Ziegfeld, 2014). Coming in second or third place has no electoral meaning in many
election districts.
Political competition in India varies greatly from state to state, thanks, in large part, to dozens of regional parties
that earn support in only one or two states each. While the BJP performed well across the board in 2014, and did
even better in 2019, its performance improved the most in states where it was already competitive. It is the third,
fourth, or even fifth most popular party in states where it has never been dominant. Since 2019, the BJP has made
inroads across a broad expanse of Eastern and Southern states including Karnataka, Tripura, Manipur, Mizoram,
Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Puducherry (where it is in power), as well as West Bengal and Odisha,
where it is the main opposition party. Yet, these verdicts do not necessarily signal a unification of politics. In 2014
and 2019, India's two biggest national parties received just about 50% and 57% of the vote, respectively. The
remaining half of the vote share, like in the previous four national elections, went to these small, mostly
provincial parties. In the state elections ever since, the BJP has largely consolidated votes away from the
Congress or the Communists, rather than having any significant vote swing from regional parties. Although
regional parties' voices may be muted in national politics for the next few years, they still command significant
vote-shares at the state level.
Even after its astonishing performance during the 2019 elections, when it won 303 seats, the party lost a number
of key state elections in the following years, apart from seeing a drop in its vote share. One possible reason for
the abysmal performance of a dominant national party at the state level could be its insistence on projecting its
national leader during state elections as well, when voters might expect a certain decentralisation from the party
leadership. The support for this proposition comes from the results of some of the recently held state elections
like—the party lost in Jharkhand and Maharashtra, could only retain power in Bihar and Haryana through
coalitions, and vote shares dropped significantly (when compared with national elections) in states like Odisha,
Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh etc (Verma, 2022).
12.
Two essential takeaways can be drawn, one each for national level parties and state-level parties. The
puzzle about national parties in India is the existence of only one party's dominance at the national level at
a time. And while all of these regional parties are personality-driven and controlled by a single individual or
family, their long-term viability or destiny hinges on how seamlessly authority is transmitted to successors.
The more family members that share power, the greater the risk of fragmentation. However, what is
certain is that the fourth party system continues to produce various changes, especially at the level of state
parties, and state party systems, which need to be studied and understood.
13.
CONCLUSION
Drawing from the series of workshops on state-level parties, this paper is a study of similarities and
differences within these parties, and what they can tell us about Indian politics. While historically, state-
level parties in India have attempted to create constituencies away from the dominant and hegemonic
national party system, many of them came to themselves become system defining entities during the third
party system. With the onset of a new dominant party at the centre and national party consolidation, the
role of state-level parties is also undergoing a shift. With over five thousand parties registered with the
Election Commission of India, and further proliferation of regional parties due to fragmentation of voters,
the questions about their relevance, utility, and sustainability in the Indian polity remains.
One of the most notable trends in India's electoral politics during the last twenty-five years has been the
rise of regional political parties. Whereas these parties were minor actors at the national stage forty years
ago, they are now permanent fixtures in national governments. The growth of regional parties has been
met with scepticism by most observers; one source of concern is the perception that regional parties reflect
restricted regional identities that undermine the Indian state's integrity. Another source of concern is that
regional parties are perceived to be unstable. However, the evidence for both hypotheses is thin,
suggesting that regional parties' detrimental influence may be exaggerated. On the contrary, the
emergence of local/regional politics has resulted in stronger national representation of people’s desires.
Given India’s diversity, it is nearly impossible for any government to represent all of its citizens' aspirations,
emotions, and beliefs. Despite the fact that the federal structure of the Constitution assures that every state
and its people are appropriately represented, the overwhelming popularity of one party with strong central
leadership is sometimes oblivious to the requests of local leaders. Regional parties are able to solve these
issues and contribute to the creation of a truly federal system. In government, especially during single party
dominance, state-level parties in state governments as well as ally parties within the coalition play
important roles as the opposition. Regional parties, which are most often created on the basis of defending
their people's dignity, culture, religion, language, and so on, are more sensitive to these issues than
national parties, and they aid in the preservation and promotion of their region's interests and aspirations.
14.
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17.
Photos from the 12 workshops

18.
Summary of Sessions
The workshop series on state-level parties in India began on the 15th of July, 2021 when
panelists were asked to set the tone for subsequent workshops. The workshops helped us build
a case for regional parties that finally culminated into the above approach paper. Some of those
remarks are mentioned here. In the introductory workshop- Adam Ziegfeld talked about how
the vote share of these state-level parties has come down during the 2019 elections. He argued
that the vote share of state-level parties and independents together has reduced to 38 percent,
which is considerably huge but compared to 1998 (when it was 45 percent), it’s a drop. For the
two dominant national parties, the picture is equally grim, he suggested- it is difficult for the
Congress Party to effectively challenge the Bhartiya Janta Party because its votes are scattered
all across the country, but in pockets. Whereas the BJP is effectively on the same footing, in
terms of vote shares where it was just before the election that got them to power.
Pradeep Chhibber posed several questions and challenges that he expected the workshops to
explore in the next six months like, why is it that only one national party can survive in India,
and conversely why do regional parties continue to survive at all? He also pointed out how these
regional parties differ from one another in several ways one of which is particularly interesting-
on the one hand, some parties are effective in an entire state like the DMK or TMC, and on the
other, we have parties that are based on sub-regional cleavages like the BSP, or SP. Finally, he
concluded his remarks by saying that the workshops must explore how these regional parties
deal with dominant ideologies, like Hindutva because while some function at the periphery and
claim that these grand ideas are exclusionary of their interests while others try to erect an
alternate ideological goalpost to convey that they are better at implementing their ideological
project (like the Shiv Sena or AAP).
A narrative tracing of sorts was done by Suhas Palshikar for regional parties- he said that while
regional parties existed even during the times of Nehru and Indira and so are not a new concept
but the difference between the regional parties then and that of today’s is that the former were
more concerned with opposing the Congress and forming sectoral oppositional alliances. Since
the 2010s, he added these have become more supplicants than opponents to the dominant
18.
Summary of Sessions
party in the sense, that they survive either by fighting the BJP or by trying to convince the
electorate that they are not really against Hindutva- which points towards their supplicant role
in Indian politics.
Besides the arguments laid out above, another consensus with regards to regional parties
among our panelists was on the kind of electorate these parties attract. If one divides Indian
society order into two halves- we see that while the upper half tends to gravitate towards
national/ dominant parties whereas the lower half invariably votes for regional parties. A
question posed in several subsequent workshops for almost every state was to find out how
flexible is the entry-level threshold for individuals in regional parties, i.e. is it significantly
easier to rise the ranks in regional parties when compared to national/ dominant parties? In all
of this another bone of contention among panelists was on how should one categorize parties
like the Apna Dal in Uttar Pradesh who are far too localized (limited to one or two districts of the
state) to be even categorized into state-level parties?
This research agenda is a result of all the twelve workshops we conducted at CPR with the
support of RLS and the invaluable insights provided by our panelists.
The material in this publication is copyrighted. No part of this report can be reproduced either on paper or electronic
media without permission in writing from CPR. Request for permission to reproduce any part of the report may be
sent to CPR.
Usage of information: Forwarding/copy/using in publications without approval from CPR will be considered as
infringement of intellectual property rights.
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SETTING A RESEARCH AGENDA

An Analysis of State-level Parties in India:

Published in December 2021 by Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

Cover photograph: Getty Images

Setting a Research Agenda

AN ANALYSIS OF STATE-LEVEL PARTIES CENTRE FOR POLICY RESEARCH | 2021

Rahul Verma. Fellow

Amal Jose Phillip

Atul Kumar Verma

AIADMK – All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

CPR-RLS PROJECT 2021

Changing Dynamics of Regional vs Regionalist Parties

Organisation, Leadership, and Party formation in Regional Parties

The Decline of the Political Left

FUTURE SCOPE OF RESEARCH

Regional parties and Democracy

Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Populism. Oxford University Press.

Photos from the 12 workshops

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