Regional parties in the 16th Lok Sabha elections: Who survived and why?

Abstract

This paper attempts to explain why some regional parties flourished and others fizzled out in the 16th general elections to the Lok Sabha. To explain this variation, it makes a distinction between regionally-located parties and regionalist parties. While both are regional parties in the sense that they have territorially limited arenas of operation they are different in terms of their programme and agenda. In the 2014 elections, the regionally-located parties fared relatively poorly compared to regionalist parties. This paper argues that success and failure often depend on the efforts, strategies and tactics of competitors. It concludes that the strategy of the Bharatiya Janata Party was favourable to the electoral fortunes of regionalist parties and disadvantageous to the regionally-located parties.