State Politics in Contemporary India Conundrums and Possibilities

Preface

1.      State Politics in Contemporary India: An Introduction

Yatindra Singh Sisodia, Ashutosh Kumar and Pratip Chattopadhyay

PART- I: CHANGING NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

2.     Politics in the Indian States: A Comparative Perspective

K.C. Suri         

3.     Studying State-Level Politics in India: Reading the Literature

Ashutosh Kumar

4.     Geography of Electoral Support: The BJP and Congress Over Time

Suraj Jacob

PART- II: CONTEXT AND CONTEST OF STATE POLITICS

5.     State Politics, Governance and Raj Dharma: Reading the Ancient Texts

Khushboo Mahajan

6.     Union Territories in Indian Federation: Architype of Constitutional Asymmetry

Rekha Saxena  

7.     The Office of Governor in India's Federal Polity: A Comparative Study of UPA and NDA Regimes (2004-2024)

Adnan Farooqui           

8.     Constitutional Silences and Centre-State Relations: Can Governor’s Assent to Bills be Withheld?

Shruti Bedi

9.     India’s Muslims and Federal Democracy

Hilal Ahmed    

10.  Strong Central Command: Changing Contours of State Politics of BJP

Madhukar Sharma

11.  Navigating Development: A Study of Welfare Models of BJP, AAP and TMC

Manisha Madhava

12.  Economics of State Politics: Exploring Conundrums of Contest and Development with special reference to Madhya Pradesh

Neeta Tapan    

PART- III: PERSPECTIVE OF STATE POLITICS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN STATES

13.  BJP's Madhya Pradesh Odyssey: Politics, Development, and Governance (2003-2023)

Yatindra Singh Sisodia and Sumit Kumar Jha

14.  Investigating a Mutual Influence between Political Parties and Women Voters: A Study of Post-2012 Assembly Elections in Uttar Pradesh

Ranjana Upadhyay

15.  Changing Dynamics of Haryana Politics: The 2014 Lok Sabha Elections and Beyond

Himanshi Malik

16.  The Political Significance of Tribal Political Parties in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh: Comparative Study of the Post-2018 Period

Harsh Meena

PART- IV: PERSPECTIVE OF STATE POLITICS FROM SOUTHERN AND EASTERN STATES

17.  Electoral Politics, Dominant Castes and Social Deficit of Democracy in the Two Telugu States: A Retrospective Analysis

E. Venkatesu    

18.  Politics in West Bengal: The Riddle of Caste Linkages

Kunal Debnath 

19.  From Ethnic Politics to Recasting Hindu Civilisation: The Political Leadership of Himanta Biswa Sarma in Assam

Vikas Tripathi and Nani Gopal Mahanta

Biography

Yatindra Singh Sisodia is a Professor and Director at Madhya Pradesh Institute of Social Science Research, Ujjain (an ICSSR Institute). His areas of research interest are democracy, decentralised governance, electoral politics, tribal issues, and developmental issues. He has been conferred with the Professor G. Ram Reddy Social Scientist Award (2017). He has authored/edited 23 books, including Electoral Narratives of Democracy and Governance in Contemporary India (edited with Pratip Chattopadhyay), Routledge (2025); Political Communication in Contemporary India (edited with Pratip Chattopadhyaya), Routledge (2023); Electoral Dynamics in the States of India, (edited with Sandeep Shastri, Ashutosh Kumar), Routledge (2021); and How India Votes (edited with Ashutosh Kumar), OBS (2019). He is the Editor of two UGC-CARE-listed Journals: Madhya Pradesh Journal of Social Sciences and Madhya Pradesh Samajik Vigyan Anushandhan Journal. He has extensively written in refereed journals and participated in academic events. He has completed various government-funded research projects for various central ministries, state ministries, and organisations like ICSSR, Planning Commission, and ISRO. He has made academic visits to the United States under IVLP, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Malaysia, Dubai, and Bangladesh.

Ashutosh Kumar is a Professor of Political Science at Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. He was the Dr. T. N. Seshan Chair Professor (visiting), India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management, Election Commission of India during 2022-23. His areas of specialisation include electoral and federal dynamics in Indian states. His research papers have been published in national and international journals such as India Review, South Asia Research, Asian Ethnicity, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, Studies in Indian Politics, and Seminar. He has also authored and edited books related to Election Studies in India with a focus on states.

Pratip Chattopadhyay is an Associate Professor and former Head of the Department of Political Science, University of Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal. He obtained his PhD from University of Calcutta on the position of Marxist political parties on Indian foreign policy (1991–2009). He was an Associate of UGC-IUS at IIAS Shimla from 2014 to 2016 and an Executive Committee Member of the West Bengal Political Science Association from 2013. He has authored/edited Electoral Narratives of Democracy and Governance in Contemporary India (edited with Yatindra Singh Sisodia), Routledge (2025); Political Communication in Contemporary India (edited with Yatindra Singh Sisodia), Routledge (2023); and Domestic Roots of Indian Foreign Policy: Experiences of Marxist Political Parties in UF (1996-98) and UPA (2004-08) Government. He has published over 60 articles in journals like India Review, Indian Journal of Public Administration, South Asia Survey, Critique, etc. and has made presentations at national and international conferences in India and abroad (Canada, South Korea and Bangladesh). Presntly, he also acts as Board Member of Research Committee 34 (Quality of Democracy), International Political Science Association.

This fine collection of essays shows how far India has evolved since the early days when the mere assertion of regional aspirations used to create the spectre of balkanisation. It explains how the countervailing forces emerging from regions keeps the centre in check; promotes self-rule and shared rule; and helps keep Indian democracy robust, vibrant and resilient. 

- Subrata Mitra, emeritus professor, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

 

This is a careful, well-researched and timely study of state politics in India. The analyses are deftly located in a stream of prior literature, they highlight developments that have taken place over the past few decades, and they are lucid and cogent. Scholars who are interested in the study of contemporary Indian politics and are not content with seeing India as a unitary state will find these contributions to be most invaluable.

- Sumit Ganguly, Senior Fellow and Director of the Huntington Program on Strengthening US-India relations, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

 

“State politics in India has remained an understudied domain of inquiry, even as the significance of state politics is undeniable.  With the decline of the Congress party and the end of centrally controlled planning, states became units of politics in a way that was not true earlier.  The post-2014 BJP era has sought to push a centralizing drive, but state specificities refuse to die.  India’s proverbial diversities can’t disappear. 

This volume casts fresh light on state politics.  It reframes the older issues, and also focuses on the newer questions.  Are BJP-dominated states different from those where the BJP is not a big player?  How is new welfare politics redefining centre-state relations?  Is Muslim politics primarily national in orientation, or state-based?  Are regional parties doomed to family-based, oligarchic politics, or is internal democracy a possibility?  How has the role of the governor changed?  How should one think of union territories?

An exploration of these issues, and more, advances our understanding in serious ways.  This volume deserves our close attention!

-----Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Golman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences, and Professor of Political Science, Brown University, USA

‘State politics’ is an area of research that is expanding in recent times as far as the study of Indian politics is concerned. The present volume, State Politics in Contemporary India, brings together three strands of studies of State Politics: the complex theoretical aspect of the relationship between the national and subnational levels of politics; the changing nature of politics in some key states and the state-specific issues that spill over from the state to the all-India terrain. These diverse but interrelated scholarly contributions will help students of Indian politics better understand contemporary State politics and its implications for national politics.

--Suhas Palshikar, Formerly Professor of Political Science, Savitribai Phule Pune University 

Currently Chief Editor, Studies in Indian Politics, SAGE Journal