Electoral Politics in India : The Resurgence of the Bharatiya Janata Party

The general elections held in 2014 in India — the largest democracy in the world — to elect the 16th Lok Sabha brought in dramatic results. This important volume explains not only the startling victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but also the equally surprising downfall of the Congress Party. It examines not why BJP won and the Congress lost, but why the scale of BJP's victory and that of Congress's defeat was so very different from the results in the years 2004 and 2009. The volume presents an in-depth analysis of the electoral results, state-wise studies, the factors leading up to these outcomes, and the road India has travelled since then. With contributions from India's leading political scientists, psephologists, sociologists and political commentators, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of Indian politics, democracy and political parties, as well as South Asian studies. Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of figures 9 List of tables 10 Contributors 16 Preface 20 Abbreviations 23 1 Introduction 26 Part I The Big Picture 38 2 The BJP’s 2014 resurgence 40 3 Understanding Congress’s debacle 59 4 The 2014 national election: mapping BJP’s victory through AAP’s prism 77 5 The last posts: the BJP in ‘non-BJP’ states 94 Part II States that brought victory to BJP 116 6 Saffron sweep in Uttar Pradesh 118 7 The eastern gift: BJP’s 2014 victory in Bihar 137 8 The last election in undivided Andhra Pradesh: defeat to Congress and dividend for regional parties 147 9 Beyond the Congress System in Maharashtra 162 Part III Predominance of state specificity 178 10 UDF bucked the anti-incumbency in Kerala 180 11 BJP’s limited challenge to Dravidian parties 192 12 BJD versus BJP: Odisha’s new bipolarity? 208 13 West Bengal politics at the crossroads 221 Part IV New trends 238 14 The Modi factor in 2014 240 15 Place, politics and voting: Lok Sabha election 2014 255 16 Did young voters make a difference? 266 17 Media exposure and vote choice in 2014 274 18 Middle-class votes for BJP 295 19 Epilogue: critical shifts in 2014 election 307 Appendix A: National Election Study 2014 325 Index 329 Edited By Suhas Palshikar, Sanjay Kumar And Sanjay Lodha. Based On Themes Presented At The Seminar 'understanding The 2014 General Election Mandate And Its Impact On National Politics' Held At The Mohan Lal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, On 5-7 February 2015. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.