Emergence and Impact of Regional Parties
EMERGENCE AND IMPACT OF REGIONAL PARTIES
It is raining acronyms in politics and the vibrant Indian political landscape is flooded. Well, almost so as Regional parties gain ground with amazing alacrity in a diverse India where a fast-transforming political map now promises a never before variety. SAD in Punjab on one side, SP, BSP in Uttar Pradesh on the other, RJD, JD(U) in Bihar as also DMK, AIADMK, PMK, MDMK and DMDK in the deep South and TMC, AGP and others in North-East —they seem to be flowing in from all nooks and corners to lend a different hue, their own hue, to the political waters as they flow in our country today.
EMERGENCE OF REGIONAL PARTIES
Though the experiment with regional politics first succeeded in the late 1960s when many parties won against the Congress, it was only post-1989 that regional politics really became a phenomenon, here to stay, courtesy the National Parties themselves. The alphabet-soup illustrating the striking transformation of India's politics over the past two decades, brewed on the fire provided by the space vacated by National Parties to be wedded to the cause of regional issues, local aspirations and territorial priorities. Also, shrinking space of the National Parties led to creation of a vacuum which the Regional parties were happy to fill. They sprung up and marched ahead as a consequence of the leanings of the public to advance its aspirations. Essentially individualistic, personality-driven parties bound by a lose chain of thought rather than a cohesive coordinated ideology, these pandered to regional populism with a much narrower vision of things sans any broad-based National consensus on ideology and issues.
ITS IMPACT
But, then, what did the mushrooming of these regional parties, finally, find reflection in? While it strengthened the federal structure with assertion by the
States of the Union for its share in power, privileges, taxes, revenues and benefits of micro-macro schemes, it
It is raining acronyms in politics and the vibrant Indian political landscape is flooded. Well, almost so as Regional parties gain ground with amazing alacrity in a diverse India where a fast-transforming political map now promises a never before variety. SAD in Punjab on one side, SP, BSP in Uttar Pradesh on the other, RJD, JD(U) in Bihar as also DMK, AIADMK, PMK, MDMK and DMDK in the deep South and TMC, AGP and others in North-East —they seem to be flowing in from all nooks and corners to lend a different hue, their own hue, to the political waters as they flow in our country today.
EMERGENCE OF REGIONAL PARTIES
Though the experiment with regional politics first succeeded in the late 1960s when many parties won against the Congress, it was only post-1989 that regional politics really became a phenomenon, here to stay, courtesy the National Parties themselves. The alphabet-soup illustrating the striking transformation of India's politics over the past two decades, brewed on the fire provided by the space vacated by National Parties to be wedded to the cause of regional issues, local aspirations and territorial priorities. Also, shrinking space of the National Parties led to creation of a vacuum which the Regional parties were happy to fill. They sprung up and marched ahead as a consequence of the leanings of the public to advance its aspirations. Essentially individualistic, personality-driven parties bound by a lose chain of thought rather than a cohesive coordinated ideology, these pandered to regional populism with a much narrower vision of things sans any broad-based National consensus on ideology and issues.
ITS IMPACT
But, then, what did the mushrooming of these regional parties, finally, find reflection in? While it strengthened the federal structure with assertion by the
States of the Union for its share in power, privileges, taxes, revenues and benefits of micro-macro schemes, it