Full Description
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.
Contents
1 Introduction PART I The Big Picture 2 The BJP's 2014 resurgence 3 Understanding Congress's debacle 4 The 2014 national election: mapping BJP's victory through AAP's prism 5 The last posts: the BJP in 'non-BJP' states PART II States that brought victory to BJP 6 Saffron sweep in Uttar Pradesh 7 The eastern gift: BJP's 2014 victory in Bihar 8 The last election in undivided Andhra Pradesh: defeat to Congress and dividend for regional parties 9 Beyond the Congress System in Maharashtra PART III Predominance of state specificity 10 UDF bucked the anti-incumbency in Kerala 11 BJP's limited challenge to Dravidian parties 12 BJD versus BJP: Odisha's new bipolarity? 13 West Bengal politics at the crossroads PART IV New trends 14 The Modi factor in 2014 15 Place, politics and voting: Lok Sabha election 2014 16 Did young voters make a difference? 17 Media exposure and vote choice in 2014 18 Middle-class votes for BJP 19 Epilogue: critical shifts in 2014 election
