2021 has been a bad year for the major political parties in India. Out of a total of 5 State elections, both the BJP and Congress lost three to local parties i.e. TMC in West Bengal, AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and CPI(M) in Kerala. On the other hand, BJP won only in Assam and Puducherry due to their alliance with All India N.R. Congress. Some critics might say this is due to the decreasing popularity of both the BJP and Congress, there might be another reason for the same i.e. Rise of Local Political Parties.
If you are everything to everybody then you will end up being a nobody has proven terrible for Congress in the last decade. They wanted to please everybody but ended up pleasing nobody. Although, for BJP, a party that had stood for its Hindutva stance for decades found critics claiming that it hasn’t done much for their core voter base while trying to please people outside their voter base. Therefore, we can see over the last seven years, even though people want BJP to rule the Centre, they are choosing local political parties in their respective states. A case in example is AAP, although, AAP won spectacularly in the 2020 Delhi elections, they had lost 39 out of 40 seats just 8 months prior in the General Elections.
The main reasons why people choose Local political parties as opposed to Major parties are:
They represent people’s voices better
India is a large country with very heterogeneous demography. It is difficult for a party to make policies that benefit all. It becomes more difficult for parties who hold a centrist view because if they tilt left, they lose population on the right and vice versa. Therefore, it becomes easier for local parties to represent people’s voices better since they are usually incorporated around a homogenous population. Take the example of Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, since its inception, the party has held a view which is the upliftment of Marathi Manus. Hence, their party members and voters mostly constitute a homogenous population. Therefore, Shiv Sena can do a better job representing the voice of the Marathi Manus than BJP.
Ground Support
Political Parties need two things mainly to contest an election- money and manpower. Parties such as INC and BJP have the finance to contest elections but what they lack is the manpower. An added advantage of local political parties is that their membership is mostly circled around a certain group of people which is mostly homogenous in nature. Although BJP might get their ground support from RSS, we have often seen them allying with local parties for local support. Hence, local parties tend to have a better popularity in terms of the natives.
MPs vs MLAs
To also understand why people prefer local state parties in their Assembly elections as to national parties in the General Election, we need to understand the difference of work which an MLA does as opposed to MPs.
MPs are representatives of a constituency who represent their view in the Parliament whereas an MLA represents a constituency in the General assembly. The Indian Constitution provides three lists, namely, Union, State and Concurrent through which Centre, State and both Centre and State can make laws respectively.
The Union list deals with matters of national importance such as defence, foreign affairs, banking, atomic energy, railways, post etc. whereas State lists deal with matters like public order, prisons, public health, production, manufacture, transport, purchase and sale of intoxicating liquors, agricultural education and research, fisheries, state public services etc.
A common look over these matters will show that the State deals with matters which a common man goes through on a day to day basis whilst matters dealt by the Centre, although important, only deal with matters which do not affect the daily lives of people. Therefore, when it comes to the representation of voices in daily lives, citizens choose local state parties as they would know the ground reality better.
Local Parties have existed for a long time in India but over the past few years, they enjoy the front seat in state politics. The rise of State parties in Elections has decentralised the political system in India which will give power back to the hands of the people
