Subtleties Of Indian Elections

The two books under discussion here analyse the fifteenth (2009) and sixteenth (2014) general elections in India, and provide an insight that beyond the shifts in voting preferences, how preferences of the Indian citizens as well as the policy allurements given by parties and leaders transform both the power structure and institutions as well as political processes in the country. Indian politics since the last decade of the twentieth century have been rapidly transcending from being an extension of the post-Independence Nehruvian polity and one-party-dominant political system that became synonymous with the epochal Indian National Congress to one that has been integrating with a rapidly globalizing world as well as with a growing urban middle class with a different worldview of society and polity. Yet, a large population of rural and urban poor would anticipate policy framework that would take care of them. Obviously, these and the decline of the Congress from its predominant position make the political arena more competitive, which the books under review unravel.