Eswaran Sridharan, Elections, Parties, and Coalitions in India: Theory and Recent History (Permanent Black, 2024), 372 pp., ₹995.
According to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections’ results announced on 4 June, no single party was able to get the majority number required to form the government. This marked an important shift from the previous two Lok Sabhas (2014 and 2019), which gave the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a clear majority in the house. Evidently, the 2024 results would bring back an era of coalition politics and government, removing the moratorium imposed on them for the last ten years.
In light of this significant political and electoral development, a few questions garner our attention, and some of their answers might require rethinking. The latest book by Eswaran Sridharan, Elections, Parties, and Coalitions in India: Theory and Recent History, will help us provide the historical context and empirical findings related to at least six pivotal issues. more...