Post-poll, regional parties expected to play critical role

The State-based parties will play a critical role post-election, according to Sandeep Shastri, Pro Vice-Chancellor of Jain University and Director of the Centre for Research in Social Sciences and Education.

He was delivering a talk on “State-based parties and the 2014 general elections: carving political spaces” here on Friday. He said that the clear emergence of regional parties at the national level has been witnessed over the last quarter century.

Sanjay Kumar, Director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, delivered a talk on “Social bases of State parties: do these parties essentially have a rural base?”

He said that post-Mandal era in India had witnessed the emergence of a large number of new regional parties.

The vote share of regional parties increased from 11.2 per cent during 1984 Lok Sabha election to 29.3 per cent during the 1998 Lok Sabha elections. After that the vote share has neither increased nor decreased, and the regional parties have been polling nearly 30 per cent votes in all Lok Sabha elections since 1998.

He said regional parties getting one-third of the total votes may not have been possible with the support only from rural voters or urban voters. Data from the National Election Studies indicate that regional parties have been able to expand their support in urban India as well.