party politics 1998

8/3/2019 Party Politics 1998

1/14from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.

PARTY POLITICS VOL 4. No.3 pp.367-380Copyright 1998 SAGE Publications London Thousand Oaks New Delhi

REPORT-THE NEW INDIAN PARTY SYSTEM

What Kind of a Model?Csaba Nikolenyi

ABSTRACT

The national party system of India has undergone a major transformation since the 1989 elections. The predominant party system that hadbeen in place since 1952 gave way to a pattern of genuine multi-partycompetition. While the party system has become extremely fragmented,the stable presence of three competing poles lends it an aura of orderliness. This paper analyzes the nature of the new Indian party systemwith reference to Sartori's theoretical framework. It seems that theIndian party system hinges somewhere on the borderline betweenpolarized and moderate pluralism.

KEY WORDS _ India _ multi-partyism _ party system _ Sartori

The 1989 general elections marked the beginning of a new era in the Indiannational party system, permanently ending the predominant party system(Singh, 1990). The Indian National Congress Party that once used tocommand formidable majorities in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of theIndian national legislature, lost its hegemonic position in the party system.Although returning to office in 1991 to form a minority government, theparty had clearly ceased to be the natural party of government in India.Three elections have been held in India since 1989: the ninth general election in 1989, the tenth in 1991 and the eleventh in 1996. The outcome ofeach has been quite different. Following the ninth round a minority coalition government was formed by the Janata Dal-led alliance of parties calledthe National Front. After the fall of this government, another unstablecombination was formed by the Samajwadi Janata Party, with only 10.7

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percent of the legislative seats, forming a government with the outsidesupport of the Congress Party. The collapse of this arrangement paved theway for the tenth elections, after which a minority Congress governmentwas formed. In due course, the Congress Party managed to muster defections from other parties to secure a parliamentary majority and thus lastedfor the full term. The eleventh general election of 1996 again resulted in ahung parliament. The single largest party, the B]P, l attempted to form acoalition government with the assistance of its regional allies but was stillshort of a majority and the government fell after less than a fortnight inoffice. In a bid to capture power in Delhi, the constituents of the NationalFront, the Left Front, some other regional parties and rebel Congress groupsformed a coalition government under the name United Front with theoutside support of the Congress Party.

This paper seeks to understand this new stage in the development of theIndian party system by reference to Giovanni Sartori's model of partysystems. It attempts to show that the Indian party system is no longer a caseof a predominant party system with centripetal competition, nor a case ofpersistent centrism, as the Rudolphs (1987) claimed. Rather, the best modelling of the contemporary party system is that of a hybrid case sharing traitsof both polarized and moderate pluralism in terms of Sartori's model.

Theoretical FrameworkThe two primary variables by which Sartori defines a party system are thenumber of relevant parties and the degree of ideological polarizationbetween them. In terms of the numerical variable, Sartori identifies fourmain classes of party system: the predominant party system; the two-partysystem; limited pluralism, where the number of parties is between three andfive; and extreme pluralism, where the number of relevant parties is morethan five (Sartori, 1976: 125).According to the model, only relevant parties ought to be included incounting the number of parties in the system. A party, Sartori argues, isrelevant when it has either coalition or blackmail potential. A party hascoalition potential 'no matter how small it is, if it finds itself in a positionto determine over time, and at some point in time, at least one of the possible governmental majorities' (p. 122). Sartori's definition of blackmailpotential is somewhat less precise and, therefore, more difficult to operationalize. He claims that a party has blackmail potential when

. . . its existence, or appearance, affects the tactics of party competitionand particularly when it alters the direction of the competition - bydetermining a switch from centripetal to centrifugal competition eitherleftward, rightward, or in both directions - of the governing-orientedparties. (Sartori, 1976: 123)368


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Number ofrelevant parties123-5>5N/A = no t applicable.

THE NEW INDIAN PARTY SYSTEM

Table 1. Sartori's typology of party systemsSmall ideologicaldistancePredominantTwo-partismModerate pluralismSegmented multi-partism

High ideologicaldistanceN/ATwo-party polarizedLimited but polarized pluralismPolarized pluralism

Source: Sartori (1976: 288-9)

Parties with coalition potential are relatively easy to identify: any partythat is a member of a governmental majority has to be counted as such. Inthe case of single-party majority governments only the governing party hascoalition potential. In cases of single-party minority governments, thenumber of parties with coalition potential includes all those parties whoselegislative support is vital for the survival of the government in addition tothe governing party itself. According to the same logic, when a majoritycoalition government is formed, all coalition partners have to be consideredrelevant. On the other hand, when the government is a minority-coalitionone, the coalition partners as well as the parties extending legislative supportbut not formally joining the government have to be counted.With regard to blackmail potential, Sartori clearly uses this criterion inorder to allow for counting all parties that are large enough to matter butthat have not been in government for one reason or another. It seems reasonable to operationalize parties with blackmail potential as those that have atleast, let us say, 3 percent of the seats in the legislature (Ware, 1996: 158-9)but are not parts of the governing majority.In terms of the second variable, polarization, Sartori distinguishesbetween systems where the ideological distance between the relevant partiesis high on the one hand, and where that distance is small on the other(Sartori, 1976: 126). The combination of this with the numerical variablesyields Sartori's famous two-dimensional typological framework, whichaccounts for seven types of party systems as Table 1 shows. Of these seventypes, however, Sartori deals extensively only with five: the predominant,the two-party, the moderate plural, the segmented plural and the polarizedplural party systems.Before applying Sartori's framework to the Indian party system an important qualification offered by Bartolini (1984: 121-2) ought to be pointedout. Bartolini claims that while the numerical and ideological variables arethe fundamentally most important ones in Sartori's model, the typology isin fact based on four dimensions:1 the number of relevant parties, counted according to a precise rule of systemic relevance;

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2 the degree of ideological polarization of the system, that is, the ideological distance separating its extreme components;

3 the number of ideological poles around which party competition is articulated;4 the direction (centripetal or centrifugal) of party competition, that is, thedirection of the most electorally rewarding competition tactics for parties(Bartolini, 1984: 121).While Sartori presents the latter two as properties of party systems that aredefined by the first two dimensions, Bartolini argues that all four can be considered as autonomous dimensions. For the purposes of this paper, thesefour dimensions will be discussed separately. It will become clear that onlyby so doing can one account for the hybrid nature of the party system.

The Indian Party SystemThe Number of Relevant Parties

The contemporary Indian party system is characterized by excessive fragmentation. In terms of Sartori's numerical classification, it is clearly a caseof extreme pluralism. With respect to the number of parties with coalitionpotential, the last three legislatures have seen the formation of five successive governments with a total of 25 parties having been members of thedifferent governmental majorities, either as active coalition partners or ascommitted supporters of a minority government from the outside.

It is worth noting that every party that has had blackmail potential in theperiod examined (i.e. with at least 3 percent of the seats), has also had coalition potential. The reverse, however, does not hold true. Because of theinability of any political party to secure a parliamentary majority in theperiod examined, even some of the tiniest parties with seat shares well belowthe 3 percent theoretical cut-off have been able to acquire coalition potential. In fact, according to the information in Table 2, 18 of the 25 relevantparties with coalition potential have secured less than 3 percent of the seatsin the Lok Sabha.

Ideological DistanceThe ideological distance between the relevant parties of the system can bemeasured by locating them on a left-right continuum. The recently published data on the left-right location of Indian parties by Huber and Inglehart (1995) makes this exercise possible. Table 3, using Huber andIngelhart's data, clearly shows that the ideological distance between themost left- and the most right-orientated relevant parties, the CommunistParty of India (Marxist) and the Indian Union Muslim League respectively,

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Table 2. Governmental majorities in the Lok Sabha, 1989-96Parties in Seats Parties supporting Seats

Year the government (%) the government (%)1989 JD 26.3 BJP 15.6TD 0.3 CPI(M) 6.1

Congress-S 0.2 CPI 2.2RSP 0.7AIFB 0.5

Total 26.8 Total 25.11989 SJP 10.7 INC 36.31991 INC 45.7 IUML 0.4

AIADMK 2.1KC(M) 0.2SSP 0.2JD(G) 0.2Total 3.1

1996 BJP 29.8 Samata Party 1.5SHS 2.8 HVP 0.6SAD 1.5

Total 32.6 Total 3.61996 JD 8.0 INC 25.3

TMC 3.7 CPI(M) 6.1DMK 3.2 RSP 0.9SP 3.2 AIFB 0.6TD 3.0 IUML 0.4CPI 2.2 MPVC 0.4AGP 0.9 KC 0.2INC(T) 0.7 KCP 0.2MGP 0.2Total 25.1 Total 34.1

Sources: India Today (31 May 1996, p. 45); The Hindustan Times (2 June 1996, p. 1,29June 1996, p. 1); Press Trust of India (1991: 2); Hardgrave (1993).

is very high.2 The ideological stretch of the party system is 6.78 out of themaximum 9.00, given that the scores are assigned on the basis of a 10-pointscale.

The ideological patterning of the party system is best conceived by lookingat the four major parties - the Indian National Congress, the Bhratiya JanataParty, the Janata Dal, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) - as itscore; it is these parties that define the ideological contours of the party

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system. In this sense the other parties are peripheral; although their behaviour does influence the coalition calculus, they do not have a significantimpact on the ideological intensity of the system.The four core parties have a clear ideological outlook. The CommunistParty of India (Marxist) definitely forms the left Pole of the system. This wasrendered very clear when at its 14th congress in 1992 the party reaffirmedits belief in the principles of Marxism-Leninism (Thakur, 1995: 249).Furthermore, the party has consistently attacked and criticized the economicliberalization programme in the name of upholding economic justice.Although the issue of economic liberalization itself is not a source of cleavage in the party system, its manner of implementation is. What the Communist Party rejects is the seemingly too high social costs of opening up ofthe economy to foreign competition.

The Janata Oal has attempted to offer a broad-based centre-left alternative to the Congress regime since its inception. Its main ideological plankhas been the propagation of social justice, meaning the elevation of society'sweaker sections. However, social justice has become coterminous withcasteism: in 1989 the Janata Oal-Ied National Front government decided toimplement the recommendations of the Mandai Commission calling for 27percent of all government jobs to be reserved to the Other Backward Classesin addition to the already existing, and constitutionally stipulated, reservation scheme that applied to scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.3

The Congress Party has a slightly right of centre positioning. It is important to note that centrist politics constituted the backbone of Congressdominance in the past: it was the party's ability to win the support of arainbow of social communities that allowed it to return to power over andover again.4 Although there have been periodic moments when Congressseemed to shift a bit more to the left or a bit more to the right,S it has maintained a centrist position quite consistently over time. At present, the party'smove to the right of centre has been reflected by its endorsement andimplementation of economic liberalization.6 This shift to the right of centrecost the Congress Party a split in May 1995, engineered by Arjun Singh andN. o. Tiwari, both long-time party stalwarts. They advocated a return tothe party's traditional stand of favouring the weaker sections and minorities of the Indian society, who tend to be badly affected by market reforms.The Bharatiya Janata Party is the descendant of the erstwhile BharatiyaJana Sangh, which was one of the four parties merging to create the JanataParty that dislodged Congress from power for the very first time in 1977.According to Table 3, the B]P has a clearly rightist ideological outlook. Thisis confirmed by looking at the party's stated principles and manifest goals.Its predecessor, the B]S, had a platform of four fundamentals - 'one country,one nation, one culture, one law' (Thakur, 1995: 237) - from which the B]Phas only slightly departed. The stated objectives of the B]P are 'nationalism,national integration, democracy, positive secularism, [and] value-based politics' (Malik and Singh, 1994: 38). The BJP of the 1980s and 1990s has

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Table 3. The left-right location of Indian political partiesPartyCPI (M-L)CPI (M)CPIJD (A)JDAIADMKINCBSPDMKBJPIUMLa On a 10-point scale

Mean left-right score a1.382.222.644.004.505.675.806.006.508.189.00

Source: Huber and Inglehart (1995: 99). Unfortuntely, this internationalstudy only gives information for a few parties in the Indian party system.

emphasized and propagated Hindutva, a revivalist pan-Hindu ideologyaiming at uniting all Hindus of the country. However, various electoralstudies have shown that the BJP's core support has come from the welleducated, urban, forward, or upper-caste segment of the Hindu population(India Today, 15 April 1991, pp. 52-3; 15 July 1991, pp. 34-5; 31 May1996, pp. 47-50). In other words, the party's support base is more sectionalthan communal, which has prevented it from succeeding in entirely polarizing Indian politics along communal lines. In terms of socio-economic policy,the BJP is clearly in favour of economic liberalization and foreign investmentin so far as it does not compromise the cultural integrity of the nation.

The Number ofPolesAn interesting feature of the contemporary Indian party system is that inspite of its excessive fragmentation, almost all parties have coalesced intothree distinct competing blocs in an orderly fashion. According to Brass, theIndian party system

. . . took on the form of a loose three/four coalition system in which'national' parties combined with regional and other small parties inAlliances or Fronts to enhance their positions and to coordinate theirpolicies and actions in the House.(Brass, 1994: 75)The alliances he refers to are those led by the Congress Party and the BJPrespectively, and the National Front and Left Front, led by the Janata Daland the Communist Party of India (Marxist) respectively. The Congressalliance consists of the Congress Party and its allies in the southern states:

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one faction of the Kerala Congress in Kerala, the All-Indian Anna DravidaMunnetra Kazagham in Tamil Nadu and the Indian Union Muslim Leaguein Kerala. In 1991 the Sikkim Sangram Parishad and the Janata Dal(Gujarat) also belonged to the Congress-led combine until they merged withthe party itself. The principal parties of the BJP-led bloc, besides the BJPitself, are: the Shiv Sena, the party's ally in the state of Maharashtra sincethe 1990 state elections there; the Haryana Vikas Party, the regional partyof the state of Haryana that supported the BJP only in 1996; the SamataParty, a recent party founded in 1994 which has limited appeal in the Hindibelt states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh; and the Shiromani Akali Dal ofPunjab, which has had a long but chequered history of partnership with theBJP and its predecessor, the BJS.The National Front, at the time of its founding in 1988, began as analliance of two national parties, the Janata Dal and the Congress-S, andthree regional parties, the TDP of Andhra Pradesh, the DMK of TamilNadu, and the AGP of Assam. The Janata Dal suffered a split in 1990 whenthe faction led by Chandra Shekhar, himself a prime ministerial aspirant,seceded and formed the Samajwadi Janata Party that eventually came toform a minority government with the support of the Congress. After the1996 elections, the Front expanded by the entry of rebel Congress groups(the TMC, the MPVC, INC(T) and KCP),7 the Samajwadi Party led byMulayam Singh Yadav, and the MGP, to form the government under theUnited Front label in cooperation with the Left Front parties.The Left Front consists of the two communist parties, the All-IndiaForward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party. The Left Front and theNational FrontlUnited Front, although institutionally distinct, have consistently supported one another in national politics in the 1989-96 period,and as such they are best seen as comprising the third competing pole in theparty system together. Thus, although the Left Front officially did not joineither the JD-led National Front government in 1989 or the United Frontgovernment in 1996 (save for one of its constituents, the CPI, which did formally enter the latter), it did extend legislative support to these respectivegovernments from the outside.

The looseness of this system that Brass (1994) refers to results from theinternal heterogeneity of these alliances. It is important to realize that insome cases the ideologically strangest bedfellows come together in theseblocs. For example, the Indian Union Muslim League and the CongressParty are in the same bloc in spite of the fact that according to Table 3 theideological distance between them exceeds that between Congress itself andits largest competitor, the BJP.This tripolar competition characterizing the party system at the nationallevel has not permeated all regions of the country to the same extent. Table4 shows the regional distribution of each alliance's strength over the1989-96 period. In broad contours, the geographical pattern of party competition in India in this period is characterized by

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Table 4. Regional distribution of seats by bloc and year (%)Region Year INC-Bloc BIP-Bloc NF-LFIUF TotalNorth 1989 17.2 19.9 51.7 88.81991 29.1 45.7 16.6 91.41996 17.8 56.9 13.9 88.6South 1989 93:9 0 5.3 99.21991 78.8 3.8 14.4 97.01996 30.3 4.5 62.9 97.7West 1989 32.5 39.7 16.7 88.91991 57.1 33.3 2.4 92.8

1996 27.8 60.3 3.1 91.2East 1989 14.1 5.7 64.8 84.61991 23.9 4.9 63.1 91.91996 26.1 18.4 50.0 94.5

1 a tripolar competition in the north,S with the BJP becoming the strongestcontender there;2 a movement from the unipolar dominance by the Congress bloc in thesouth to a bipolar competition in that region due to the advances madeby the Left and the National FrontlUnited Front constituents there;9

3 the consolidation of a bipolar pattern of competition between the Congress and the BJP-led bloc in the west;4 and finally, a movement from a bipolar contest between the Congress andthe Third Front to a pattern of tripolar competition in the east, with theThird Front remaining the strongest and the BJP being the weakest of thecontenders.Given that India has a single-member-plurality electoral system, these pat

terns of regional distribution of strength can at least partially explain whythe party system has shifted from a structure of un i-polar to that of multipolar competition. The even distribution of strength enabled the CongressParty in the past to maintain its dominant position so long as the magnitude of its strength was sufficiently large. Once, however, the party steadilybegan to lose votes, beginning with the 1989 election, the same structure ofeven distribution of support meant that it would lose a disproportionatelygreater share of seats. Conversely, the regionally concentrated oppositionparties - the BJP in the north and the west and the various components ofthe National FrontlUnited Front in the north, the south and the east -started to receive greater seat shares than was warranted by their share ofthe vote under proportional representation. The distorting impact of theelectoral system on the conversion of vote shares into seat shares can begauged from the information in Tables 5 and 6.

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Table 5. Electoral polarization in the Indian party system, 1989-96Year INC vote (%) BJP vote (%) NF-LFIUF vote (%) Epa1989 39.5 11.4 31.2 2.51991 37.6 20.9 24.3 2.61996 28.1 23.5 20.2 2.5a Electoral polarization. The calculation of the polarization values is based on the left-right

scores of only the ideologically core parties. On the identification of such core parties, seethe text.

Table 6. Legislative polarization in the Indian party system, 1989-96Year INC seats (%) BJP seats (%) NFIUF-LF seats (%) Lpa1989 36.3 15.6 36.3 3.01991 44.5 23.0 21.6 2.61996 25.3 29.8 33.3 3.7a Legislative polarizat ion. The calculation of the polarization values is based on the left-right

scores of only the ideologically core parties. On the identification of such core parties, seethe text.

The Direction of CompetitionThe last dimension of analysis is the direction of competition in the partysystem. In order to find out whether it is centrifugal-polarizing or centripetal-depolarizing one can calculate the polarization index, which takesinto account two variables: party location on the left-right spectrum on theone hand, and share of votes or seats on the other. IO

Table 6 reveals that the polarization in the legislative party system hasbeen greater than that in the electoral party system in the 1989-96 period.Obviously, the main reason for this is the impact of the electoral system onthe conversion of votes into seats: the gains of the left and the right poles,represented by the National FrontlUnited Front-Left Front and the BJPrespectively, and the enfeeblement of the centre, represented by the CongressParty, are stronger in terms of their seat shares than in terms of the votesthey have mustered.

By international comparison, the values of the legislative or the electoralpolarization indices are not outstandingly high: according to Lane andErsson's (1994) study, the average level of electoral polarization in the WestEuropean party systems was 3.1 in the period 1985-9. Of the countries theystudied, Austria (2.1) and Belgium (2.6) had the closest score to India's(1994: 185).With regard to the trend in the direction of competition, it is clear thatthere has been virtually no change in the electoral party system. The polarization index has the same value for both 1989 and 1996, and even in 1991

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it only deviated by a mere 0.1. With respect to the legislative party system,there has been more fluctuation. As Table 6 illustrates, the strengthening ofthe centre pole, led by the Congress Party, in the legislature after the 1991election led to a drop in the value of the index. In 1996, however, the legislative strengthening of both the right and the left blocs resulted in a jumpin the value of the index by 1.1.

ConclusionThe main features of the contemporary Indian party system can be summedup in terms of the four analytical dimensions adopted in this study. First, itis beyond doubt that in terms of the numerical dimensions the Indian partysystem is a case of extreme pluralism, since the number of parties acquiringsystemic relevance had risen to 25 by 1996. Second, the ideological distancebetween the relevant parties is very high. In other words, the ideologicalspace of the system is widely stretched. Third, following Sartori's expectation, the large number of relevant parties in a context of wide ideologicalspace leads to a multi-polar constellation of parties; i.e. parties coalesce intothree main poles or competing alliances. Fourth, contrary to the expectationof Sartori's model, there is no pronounced trend of centrifugal competitionin the system. In terms of the data used to calculate the degree of polarization, the main reason why this is so has to do with the resilience of the Congress Party, which ensures the viability of a centrist option in the system. Inother words, although the Congress is no longer a dominant party it is stillstrong enough to ensure that the party system is not pulled apart by the centrifugal confrontation of the left and the right. After all, no one party oralliance has yet outdistanced the Congress in its performance at the polls!Finally, it is important to reiterate the polarizing role of the electoral system:by magnifying the success of the regionally concentrated left and right blocsit has accelerated the enfeeblement of the centre in the legislature.

In terms of Sartori's theoretical model, the Indian party system bears traitsof both polarized and moderate pluralism. In terms of the number of parties,the width of the ideological space and the number of poles it is a case ofpolarized pluralism. However, the level of polarization is clearly lower thanif it were a truly polarized system.

Appendix: Full Names of Political Parties and AlliancesAbbreviated in the TextAGPAIADMKAIFBBJPBJS

Asom Gona ParishadAll-India Anna Dravida Munnetra KazaghamAll-India Forward BlocBharatiya Janata PartyBharatiya Jana Sangh377


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BSPCPICPI(M)CPI(M-L)DMKHVPINCINC(T)IUMLJDJD(A)JD(G)KCPKCLFMGPMPVCNFRSPSADSHSSJPSPSSPTDTMCUF

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Bahujan Samaj PartyCommunist Party of IndiaCommunist Party of India (Marxist)Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)Dravida Munnetra KazaghamHaryana Vikas PartyIndian National Congress PartyIndian National Congress (Tiwari)Indian Union Muslim LeagueJanata DalJanata Dal (Ajit)Janata Dal(Gujarat)Karnataka Congress PartyKerala CongressLeft FrontMaharashtrawadi Gomantak PartyMadhya Pradesh Vikas CongressNational FrontRevolutionary Socialist PartyShiromani Akali DalShiv SenaSamajwadi Janata PartySamajwadi PartySikkim Sangram ParishadTelugu Desam PartyTamil Maanila CongressUnited Front

Notes

1 The full names of the Indian political parties are listed in the Appendix.2 The score for the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) can be discountedsince that party has not acquired systemic relevance in the period examined.3 This decision served as one of the main reasons triggering the BJP's withdrawal

of support for the National Front government.4 On centrism in Indian party politics, see Rudolph and Rudolph (1987: 19-59).5 For good and informative discussions about the relationship between the Congressand the left and the right respectively, see Hasan (1994) and Graham (1994).6 It was the Congress government headed by the late Rajiv Gandhi that first floatedthe idea of ending the licence-permit raj and introducing market liberalization.Although Rajiv later back-pedalled from this course, Narasimha Rao's government (1991-6) went ahead with it in a more determined fashion.7 These parties were invariably formed by regional strongmen of the CongressParty who had been sidelined by the party's central leadership under NarasimhaRao. The TMC was floated by G. K. Moopanar over the contentious issue of anelectoral alliance between the Congress and the AIADMK, the ruling party in thestate of Tamil Nadu at that time, for the 1996 parliamentary polls. The stateCongress unit in Tamil Nadu under Moopanar's leadership had been exposing

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and fighting the corrupt AIADMK administration of the state and pressed thecentral high command against any sort of electoral understanding with thegoverning party of the state. However, for reasons of electoral arithmetic, thecentral leadership decided otherwise.Similarly, the leaders of the KCP, S. Bangarappa, of the MPVC, Madhav RaoScindia, and of the INC(T), N. D. Tiwari and Arjun Singh, were factionalopponents of Narasimha Rao's ruling coterie who found themselves eitherexpelled from the Congress Party for 'anti-party activities' or denied tickets torun under the Congress label in the 1996 polls.It is interesting to point out as evidence for the highly volatile nature of Indianparty politics that save for the TMC, the other three rebel groups have foundtheir ways back to the parent party in the first half of 1997. In the wake of the1996 polls that resulted in the Congress Party's worst ever electoral performance,Narasimha Rao was replaced as party president by the party's treasurer Sita RamKesri. In an effort to consolidate his position in the party, and more importantly,to distance himself from Rao's faction, one of his first steps was to facilitate thereturn of the aforementioned leaders and their followers to the Congress fold.At the time of writing, however, the TMC still maintains its own independentidentity and forms a part of the United Front government in Delhi.8 For the purposes of this discussion, the four regions are meant to encompass thefollowing states and union territories. The north consists of Haryana, HimachalPradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chandigarhand Delhi. The south includes Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu,Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. The west is madeup of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradeshand Maharashtra. The east consists of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar,Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Sikkim, Tripura and WestBengal. This classification is based on the analysis of the 1996 election in IndiaToday (31 May 1996, p. 45).9 Note that these patterns of party competition in the different regions refer onlyto national elections. In state-level elections and party systems, the picture lookssomewhat different. Thus, for example, Congress lost its unipolar dominance inthe southern states long before it did so in the parliamentary polls there.

10 The formula is: ,iJi(X-x)2,where f refers to the vote share of the i-th partyexpressed in percentage terms; x stands for the left-right score of the same party,and x stands for the mean left-right score of the party system (Lane and Ersson,1994). It is important to note that in calculating the polarization values, theparties' location on the left-right spectrum was fixed for the period underconsideration. Therefore, any change in the value of the index is the function ofa change in the respective parties' share of the popular vote or that of thelegislative seats.

ReferencesBartolini, Stefano (1984) 'Institutional Constraints and Party Competition in theFrench Party System', in Stefano Bartolini and Peter Mair (eds) Party Politics in

Contemporary Western Europe, pp. 103-27. London: Frank CassoBrass, Paul (1994) The Politics of India Since Independence. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.379


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party politics 1998

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