Expert Speak India Matters
Published on Oct 07, 2016
The author writes upon, regional parties role in India, in the country’s parliamentary democracy
Regional parties and Indian politics

In India, regional parties have been coming up at regular intervals playing different roles in the country’s parliamentary democracy. Some parties like the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference were even founded before the country gained independence in 1947. But most of other parties came into existence after country attained freedom.

The growth of state parties, which fall broadly under the rubric of regional parties, picked up particularly after 1967 when the hold of the Indian National Congress, which had spearheaded the freedom struggle, over the country’s electorate began to weaken.

There are about four dozen recognised state parties and about two dozen more which are not yet recognised by the Election Commission of India. At present, some of them are ruling in their respective states and others are waiting for their turn to come to power.

Regional parties have challenged the national parties, gathering popular electoral support, exploiting the national parties’ neglect of the political and economic interests of the region or even the state.

One of the oldest regional parties, the Shiromani Akali Dal was established in 1920 by the religious organisation Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) to be the principal representative of Sikhs in the undivided Punjab during the British rule.

At present, regional parties are ruling, either on their own or in alliance with a national party or with other parties, in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkam, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

A major trait of all these parties is that they are controlled and driven by one leader whose writ runs large in party affairs and whose command cannot be challenged. In short, they are controlled by a single leader and his or her confidantes. Immediate family members and relatives invariably wield considerable clout in these parties.

Even parties, which justified their respective existence on some ideological grounds, have been converted into individual fiefdoms or self-interest preserving outfits with passage of times.

Therefore, the longevity of such parties, under normal circumstances, should be closely linked with the life of their respective leaders.

Another dimension of the regional outfits is that family members, close relatives and friends run the affairs of the party and one of them inherits the legacy of that leader either in his or her times or after he or she passes away.

Recently, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has been in news because of a long simmering feud between the supreme leader and his son which brokeout into open. Therefore, it is interesting to study closely the SP to understand the trajectory of the regional parties and their future.

The SP has been ruling the biggest state of the Indian Union since 2012 and had  been in power in the state for about a decade since it was founded in 1992. It had also shared power at the Centre.

The party was founded by the three times Uttar Pradesh chief minister and former Defence Minister in the government of India, Mulayam Singh Yadav, after he broke away from the Janata Dal. Mulayam’s political clout phenomenally grew after the acceptance and implementation of the Mandal Commission report in the early nineties of the last century which overtly strengthened the role of identity politics in north India.

Mulayam became the chief minister of UP first in 1989 and remained on the seat exactly for one year and 201 days. After the defeat of the Janata Dal in the 1991 general elections, he had to step down. Thereafter, he founded the SP and became the chief minister for two times.

Mulaym turns 78 on  November 22 this year and is said to be not keeping best of his health. For some time, an overt and covert battle for supremacy within the organisation has been going on, but it has never been so open as now, with two distinct factions led by UP Chief Minister Akhilsh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav preparing for post-Mulayam times. While Akhilesh is the elder son of the SP’s supremo, Shivpal is Mulayam’s younger brother.

Apprehending challenge to his own authority as well as to the fortunes of the party, Mulayam intervened and crafted a solution which in his assessment would protect his twin goals of remaining politically relevant and retaining power in the biggest state in the coming assembly elections.

Notwithstanding the show of unity, enforced by Mulayam, currently being displayed by  Akhilesh and newly appointed state SP president Shivpal, there seems to be no doubt that the 25 year old party is facing an existential crisis. It has developed lots of cracks which are being paper over by the SP supremo.

Realising that his son’s move may seriously jeopardise the chances of return to power of the party after the election, Mulayam intervened to placate Shivpal and had appointed him the party chief of UP removing Akhilesh from the post. It should have been a clear signal to the Chief Minister but Akhilesh went ahead showing the doors to Shivpal and his father’s favourites.

Not only that Shivpal was made to head the party in the state but Mulayam ensured that all decisions of the Chief Minister were taken back. The SP patriarch went a step further and appointed Amar Singh as the general secretary of the party, snubbing the Chief Minister who had called Singh “an outsider”.

Amar Singh, who was expelled from the party in 2010, was readmitted into the party in May this year and was unanimously elected to the Rajya Sabha on the SP ticket.

It must be said here that while the battle is being fought by Shivpal and Akhilesh, there are many powerful factions within the party who are aligned with either of the two and may switch their loyalties depending upon which way the balance of power is tilting in the coming months.

There is the newly appointed general secretary of the party, Amar Singh. Then there is leader of the party in the Rajya Sabha, Ramgopal Yadav, who is not only a cousin of the party supremo but is also the ideologue of the party. It is said that Mulayam consults him on important issues. Then there is Mulayam’s second wife Sadhna Gupta and her son Prateek Yadav, who is ambitious and deals in high value properties. They all have huge stakes in the outcome of the war within the Yadav family.

Soon upon assuming charge, Shivpal moved fast and has removed seven youth leaders who are close to Akhilesh. Earlier, he initiated action against a MLC of the party who is a close relative of Mulayam’s cousin Ramgopal Yadav.

Big the question is whether the enforced truce will last or will crack in coming weeks and months?  Chances are weak because many battles are being fought in the SP.

Though the battle has been going on for months, impending Assembly elections early next year seems to have brought the behind-the-scene-tug-of-war into open. Coming elections, most possibly in February next year, have introduced a sense of urgency to the battle because the distribution of 403 party tickets was at stake – because the strength of any leader will be the strength of party’s elected MLAs and their loyalty.

That is why both Akhilesh as well as Shivpal would like that their respective followers and adherent get maximum number of tickets to ensure supremacy. Who would occupy the chief ministerial chair after the elections is driving both the two factional leaders.

Akhilesh, who was made the chief minister after the 2012 assembly election which gave a clear majority to the SP, ruled the state for four and half years with his hands tied at his back as his decision making powers were seriously curtailed.

Apart from his father, there are at least three more power centres in the party which called shots in the state government. Akhilesh’s plight became the source of a popular joke that there are four and half chief ministers in the state with Akhilesh being the half and the three being Mulayam, Shivpal and Azam Khan who was brought back into the party just before the last Assembly elections.

With elections staring in the face, Akhilesh was keen to dismiss a largely held public perception that he is just a puppet ruler. He had crafted an image of an honest and well meaning leader. He wanted to emerge supreme in the battle of supremacy. He was cleverly working to project an image that he could have developed the state much more had he been given a free hand.

In a show of apparent defiance, the Chief Minister dropped two of his ministers namely Gayatri Prajapati and Raj Kishore Singh said to be close to his father from his council of minister on charges of corruption. Then he removed three months old Chief Secretary Deepak Singhal who owes loyalty to Shivpal and appointed his favourite Rahul Prasad Bhatnagar in Singhal’s place. Finally, he struck at Shivpal too, divesting important portfolios from him.

Akhilesh had earlier blocked the merger of the Quami Ekta Dal (QED) into the SP on grounds that a merger would bring bad name to the party. The QED’s main patron and financer is a noted criminal, Mukhtar Ansari. The merger was being engineered by Shivpal and had the blessings of Mulayam.

Under attack from the opposition on the issue of the bad law and order situation in the state, the Chief Minister had recently asked the state police bosses to adopt a “zero tolerance” policy towards the crime in the state.

Mulayam made Shivpal the UP chief of the SP in full knowledge and hope that his younger brother knows party workers personally and was the important link between him and the Akhilesh government. Shivpal, not Akhilesh, would play a key role in ticket distribution as his younger brother knew the political ground realties, including the caste combinations in every assembly constituency.

Denied a preeminent role in ticket distribution, Akhilesh may have decided to lie low now, but he may not bear humiliations for long and may strike back at an opportune time. Akhilesh was the party’s face but he has been sidelined and this means the loss of the SP’s main USP.

The SP may have to face the wrath of the electorate and Mulayam’s last minute damage control moves may not prove sufficient for return of power.

Winning elections, after all, is not only management of castes in UP but public perception is equally an important factor. The SP seems to have lost the battle of public perception.

Challenges and troubles currently being faced by the SP are no exception as almost similar threats are inbuilt in systems of almost all the regional parties which have been in power or are struggling to acquire power.

For example, the Bahujan Samaj Party was in power in UP four time with every time its  unchallenged, rather irreplaceable, leader, Mayawati being the chief minister. The party, founded in 1984, was formed by late Kanshiram with the purpose of giving better representation to ‘Bahujans’, meaning persons from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Communities (OBCs) as well as minorities.

Late Kanshiram had appointed former school teacher Mayawati as his successor and after his death, the BSP’s existence and survival depends upon her. Her command cannot be either questioned or challenged by any other member of the party. A large majority of the Dalit population of the country, particularly of UP, accept her as their leader.

Though the party initially drew its inspiration from Dr B R Ambedkar, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Periyar E. V. Ramasamy and Chattrapati Sahhuji Maharaj, after it won the assembly and parliamentary elections in early 90s, Mayawati shifted her objective and guiding philosophy to crafting effective electoral strategy to capture power. For many years now, she is the cementing factor which keeps the BSP together. Therefore, it seems difficult to imagine the BSP’s future in her absence. Unless she begins to groom her successor, her absence from the political scene, in all likelihood, would push the party to disintegration. At present, there is no single leader in the BSP who could lead the party in her absence.

Another party, mainly based in UP, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), founded in 1996 by former Union Minister Ajit Singh, has its area of influence in the Jat dominated districts of the State.  Ajit Singh, who inherited the legacy of his father, freedom fighter and former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, has been forging electoral alliances with other political parties, including the national parties, the Congress and the BJP, to keep his party politically relevant. His son Jayant Chaudhary, one time Lok Sabha MP from Mathura, is likely to take over the reins of the party from his father.

In Punjab, the 96-year-old SAD has been in power several times. But since 1970, after Parkash Singh Badal became the fourth SAD chief minister of Punjab, the party’s main power centre has slowly but surely shifted to his family. The SAD and the BJP have been in an electoral alliance and the two have been in power since 2007. Prakash Singh Badal’s son Sukhbir Singh Badal holds the deputy chief minister’s chair and is also the president of the party. Sukhbir Singh Badal’s wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal is a minister in the BJP-led government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In neighbouring State of Haryana, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) was founded in October 1996 as Haryana Lok Dal (HLD) by former Deputy Prime Minister and two times chief minister Chaudhary Devi Lal. The HLD was renamed as INLD in 1998. Devi Lal’s son, Om Prakash Chautala, who is the current president of the party, has been chief minister four times. Chautala’s son Ajay Singh Chautala is the secretary general of the party.

In Tamil Nadu, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), founded in 1949 by the first non-Congress Chief Minister C M Annadurai as a breakaway faction of the Dravidar Kazhagam led by Periyar E. V Ramasami, won the State assembly elections in 1967. Since then, the DMK has undergone many changes, including a split in 1972 when its treasurer and a popular film actor M G Ramachandran formed a new party called All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). These parties have been alternating in power in the State.

These parties are also developing into personal fiefdoms of their single leaders. The DMK is being controlled by five-time chief minister M Karunanidhi while the AIADMK was first controlled by M G Ramachandran and now by his colleague J Jayalalithaa, who inherited  the MGR’s legacy after his death in 1987. She has also been the chief minister five times.

Though DMK chief Karunanidhi has informally appointed his younger son M K Stalin his successor, a family feud cannot be ruled out in the party in coming times, particularly when its now unchallenged leader departs.

Similarly, the AIADMK is also programmed to face a crisis as and when present Chief Minister Jayalalithaa departs. To make the situation worse, she has not groomed her successor, and has controlled the party with an iron hand.

In West Bengal, the All India Trinamool Congress of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is no different from other regional parties. It is also a single personality driven party. Her command is the last word, allowing almost no discussion or dissent in the party affairs. The charisma of Bannerjee drove the party again to power in the State early this year, defeating the Left parties, which had ruled over the State more than three decades, and the BJP.

In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana too, regional parties, the Telgu Desam Party (TDP) and the Telangana Rashtra   Samithi (TRS), are in power. The TRS, which was founded in 2001 in the wake of an agitation for a separate State from erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, came to power in the 2014 assembly elections with its leader K S Rao becoming the first chief minister of the newly carved state. K S Rao is the president as well as the chief minister. His son K T Rama Rao and daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha are legislator and Lok Sabha MP respectively.

Similarly, the TDP’s president N Chandrababu Naidu is also the Chief Minister of Andhra. Since he took over the charge of the party after the death of his father-in-law N T Rama Rao, founder of the TDP, Naidu has been the chief minister for over 17 years in three terms.

In Orissa, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which was founded in 1997, came to power three years later and hence been in power. Its founder Naveen Patnaik, son of former chief minister Biju Patnaik, has won four assembly elections in a row. He stepped down as the Minister of Mining in the BJP led BDA government of Prime Minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee, after the BJD won the assembly election in 2000 in alliance with the BJP. In the 2004 elections, the BJD parted ways with the BJP ending the alliance. Naveen Patnaik, like the leader of the  most of the regional parties, is the centre of power and the sole decision maker. The BJD, too, has many common attributes of other regional parties.

While all these regional parties are personality driven and are one individual or family controlled political outfits, their longevity or future depends upon how smoothly power has been transferred to successors. More the number of family member sharing the power, more the danger of its disintegration as we are witnessing in the case of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.

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Contributor

Satish Misra

Satish Misra

Satish Misra was Senior Fellow at ORF. He has been a journalist for many years. He has a PhD in International Affairs from Humboldt University ...

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