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Over the past few decades, diverse social groups in India have been politicised and mobilised for electoral purposes on the basis of social cleavages, rather than on the basis of common economic interests, ideology or leadership. Almost all such social groups are spatially confined to a particular state or sub-region, following the reorganisation of states in India on a linguistic/ethnic basis,resulting in the rise of many state and sub-state parties. In effect, today India’s states are now important political units, and critical to the understanding of emergent ‘national’ politics.

How India Votes studies almost every state in India to develop a theoretical framework that will analyse and trace the processes of transition and reconfiguration in the electoral landscape. It answers the questions: What message do the states hold for parliamentary elections? How do the people, who belong to a state, respond to national and state leadership?

Drawing from the CSDS-Lokniti National Election Study 2014 data, the essays in the volume study demographic composition and the nature of socio-political cleavages and linkages; analyse the electoral outcomes of major state elections of the past decade and the influence of trends, alliances, seat adjustments, candidate selection and campaigns; study the impact of assembly and local elections held in the state, both in terms of electoral verdict and behaviour; and explore the developments that have taken place since the 2014 elections.

With its focus on the 2014 elections and state politics, this book will be useful for students of political science, psephology and sociology. It will also help the reader anticipate the issues that are likely to dominate the 2019 elections.

Contents: 1. Studying Elections and Electoral Politics in the Indian States: An Introduction/Ashutosh Kumar. I. National Perspective: 2. The Implications of the 2014 Elections: Is BJP the New Congress?/Rahul Verma and Sanjay Kumar. 3. The Religious Fault Line in the 2014 Election/Shreyas Sardesai and Pranav Gupta. 4. The Indian National Congress: Coping with Challenges of Deepening Democracy, Federalism and Neoliberal Capitalism/Rekha Saxena. 5. Party Types and Electoral Performance across States, 1980–2016/Suraj Jacob. II. Northern States: 6. Regional Divide on Communal Lines: Parliamentary Election 2014 in Jammu and Kashmir/Aijaz Ashraf Wani. 7. The 2014 Lok Sabha Elections in Punjab: Explaining the Success of Aam Aadmi Party/Ashutosh Kumar. 8. Electoral Support Base of BJP in Haryana: Continuity and Change/Kushal Pal. 9. Political Developments in Uttarakhand: BJP’s Rise in the 2014 Lok Sabha lections/Annpurna Nautiyal. 10. Himachal Pradesh Lok Sabha Elections 2014: BJP Rides High on ‘Modi Wave’/Ramesh K. Chauhan. 11. Shifting Interface of Development and Identity: Delineating the Trajectory of Electoral Politics in Uttar Pradesh/Sajjan Kumar. 12. Rajasthan: Tussle between Bipolirity and Single-party Dominance/Sanjay Lodha and Nidhi Jain. III. Central States/Bridge States: 13. Madhya Pradesh: An Analysis of BJP’s Success in the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections/Yatindra Singh Sisodia. 14. Chhattisgarh: A Repetition of BJP’s Performance in 2014/Anupama Saxena. 15. Re-evaluating Maratha Politics in Maharashtra: 2014 Assembly Elections and After/Sarthak Bagchi. 16. Gujarat: Modi Wave Pushes Congress to the Brinks in 2014/Mahashweta Jani. IV. Eastern States: 17. Chronicle of Janata Parivar Foretold: Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal (United) in Bihar/Adnan Farooqui. 18. The 2014 Lok Sabha Electoral Outcome in West Bengal: Continuity and Change/Pratip Cattopadhyay. V. Southern States: 19. Karnataka: Emerging Patterns in National and State-level Elections/Sandeep Shastri and Veena Devi. 20. 2014 Lok Sabha Mandate in Kerala: Signs of Deviation/Balu Sunil Raj. 21. Lok Sabha Election 2014 in Andhra Pradesh: End of Congress Dominance and Emergence of Multipolarity/Pranav Gupta. VI. Northeastern States: 22. Diversity in Voting Pattern in Northeast India/R. K. Satapathy. 23. Shifting Social Base: Explaining the Rise of BJP in Assam/Vikas Tripathi. VII. Method: 24. Method Note: National Election Study 2014/Rahul Verma and Shreyas Sardesai. Index.