The Evolution of Electoral Politics in Indian States

Few things capture the restlessness of Indian democracy better than its state elections. Since the 1990s, the contest for power in states has been rewritten almost beyond recognition. The era when a single party could sweep an assembly on the strength of its name alone is gone. In its place is a noisy, crowded arena of regional outfits, caste-based parties, shifting alliances, money, and increasingly, viral content on smartphones. Understanding how state-level electoral politics got here helps explain why governing many states today feels less like a coronation and more like a permanent negotiation.

From single-party dominance to a crowded field
Why regional parties took root
Shifting alliances: the rise of gathbandhan politics
The BSP-SP coalition in Uttar Pradesh
The proliferation of smaller caste-based parties
The growing influence of money
Business funding and the electoral bonds saga
The criminalization of politics
Why parties keep fielding tainted candidates
Social media and a more aware electorate
The double edge of digital campaigning
What it all adds up to

From single-party dominance to a crowded field

For the first two decades after independence, electoral politics in most states followed what scholars call the Congress system, a period from roughly 1952 to 1967 when the Indian National Congress dominated nearly everywhere. That dominance gave way first to a phase of anti-Congressism and then, after 1989, to a fragmented landscape defined by pre- and post-poll alliances. The post-1989 period saw the party system splinter and identity politics grow louder, with caste, religion, and regional pride becoming central to how people voted.

This fragmentation was not just a story of national fragmentation trickling down. State party systems developed their own logic. Voters began to distinguish sharply between state and national elections, frequently backing one party for the assembly and another for the Lok Sabha. This “split-ticket voting” signalled that state politics had become its own distinct game, with concerns and loyalties that national parties often overlooked.

Why regional parties took root

The regional parties that emerged were not flimsy splinter groups. They were formidable forces that commanded fierce loyalty by tapping into linguistic pride and state-specific grievances. Tamil Nadu’s politics, for instance, is shaped by the Dravidian movement and its distinctive brand of populism, while West Bengal’s was historically tied to land reforms like Operation Barga and its own anti-colonial traditions. Each state therefore developed a flavour of its own that national parties struggled to replicate.

The numbers tell the story. The combined vote share of regional parties crossed the 50 percent mark for the first time in 1996, and in India’s winner-take-all system, even a modest local vote share can translate into real bargaining power. A fractured polity where regional and state actors wield significant leverage over national parties has, since the 1990s, decisively changed the structure and outcome of elections.

Shifting alliances: the rise of gathbandhan politics

As no single party could dominate a fragmented field, coalition government became the norm rather than the exception. Parties that once stood at ideological extremes found themselves negotiating common minimum programmes, and seat-sharing arithmetic began to take precedence over policy coherence. The result was a politics of constant alliance-building, breaking, and rebuilding.

The BSP-SP coalition in Uttar Pradesh

No example illustrates this better than the on-again, off-again partnership between the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh. The BSP, founded by Kanshi Ram in 1984, draws its core support from Dalits, while the SP is anchored among the Yadav community and Muslims. These were two parties representing different social bases, often in direct competition with each other.

Yet in 1993, they came together. After the assembly elections that year, the BSP’s Mayawati formed a coalition government with the SP’s Mulayam Singh Yadav, a partnership that helped block the BJP at the peak of the Ram temple movement. Together the two parties had bagged 176 seats and formed a government with Congress support. The alliance was short-lived; Mayawati withdrew support in 1995, leading to a bitter and infamous falling-out.

The story did not end there. More than two decades later, the same arch-rivals reunited for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, agreeing to contest 38 seats each in a bid to consolidate their caste-community demographic against the BJP. This time the chemistry did not deliver; the BJP still swept the state, and the alliance dissolved soon after. The episode captures the essential feature of modern gathbandhan politics: alliances are increasingly built on electoral arithmetic rather than ideological affinity, and they can be assembled or dismantled with remarkable speed.

The proliferation of smaller caste-based parties

Alongside the big regional players, a layer of smaller caste-based outfits has become decisive in close contests. When the BJP faced the combined SP-BSP-RLD challenge in Uttar Pradesh, it responded by stitching alliances with smaller caste-based parties such as the Nishad Party and the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, each commanding influence over a specific community concentrated in a handful of constituencies. These micro-parties may win only a few seats, but in a fragmented field their support can tip the balance, giving them bargaining power far beyond their size.

The growing influence of money

If alliances are the visible face of changing electoral politics, money is the engine running beneath it. Indian elections have become extraordinarily expensive. The 2024 Lok Sabha election was projected to cost around USD 16 billion, and studies suggest that roughly a quarter of campaign spending goes directly to voters as gifts, alcohol, or cash. These figures exclude the enormous sums spent on state assembly and municipal contests.

Business funding and the electoral bonds saga

The role of business groups in financing campaigns has expanded dramatically, though often through opaque channels. Beginning in 2017, the central government introduced the electoral bonds scheme, which let companies and individuals donate anonymously while also removing the earlier cap on corporate donations. In February 2024, the Supreme Court declared the scheme unconstitutional, ruling that voters had a right to know who was funding parties.

The data that emerged was striking. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) found that more than half of party funds came from unknown or untraceable sources, and that 33 loss-making companies donated Rs 576 crore through electoral bonds. Researchers have since documented patterns suggesting a “quid pro quo” relationship, including corporations donating after winning government contracts or while under investigation by central agencies. The deeper problem is structural: flawed funding laws have long pushed parties toward black money and undisclosed corporate donations, meaning the demise of electoral bonds addresses only one part of a much larger equation.

The scale of cash sloshing through the system is hard to overstate. During the 2024 election, the Election Commission’s seizures of cash, liquor, drugs, and gold crossed Rs 9,000 crore, even as official spending caps for individual candidates remained far lower than what is routinely spent on the ground.

The criminalization of politics

Closely linked to money is the entry of muscle power. The Vohra Committee Report of 1993 first flagged the nexus between politicians, criminals, and bureaucrats, and the trend it warned about has only deepened. According to ADR’s analysis, the share of Lok Sabha MPs facing serious criminal cases more than doubled, from 14 percent in 2009 to 31 percent in 2024.

At the state level, the picture is equally stark. A recent ADR analysis found that nearly 45 percent of sitting MLAs have declared criminal cases against them, with states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Bihar leading in MLAs facing serious charges. Notably, the report found that regional parties accounted for a larger share of such candidates than national parties.

Why parties keep fielding tainted candidates

The reason is brutally simple: such candidates win. ADR’s 2024 data showed that candidates with declared criminal cases had a 15.3 percent success rate, compared with just 4.4 percent for clean candidates. Several factors sustain this. Weak disqualification laws under the Representation of the People Act bar candidates only after conviction, and since trials drag on for years, tainted candidates can contest election after election. Money and local muscle make these candidates “winnable” in the eyes of party managers, and slow justice provides little deterrent.

The newest force reshaping campaigns is the smartphone. With cheap data and ubiquitous devices, India’s parties have turned heavily to social media and messaging apps, leading many to call the 2019 contest “the WhatsApp election.” Parties now deploy a mobile phone “pramukh” for each of the country’s roughly 9.3 lakh polling booths, coordinating last-mile outreach and turnout reminders through daily messaging.

This has made campaigns more dynamic but also more challenging. Online and offline campaigning now feed each other: in-person rallies generate content for social media, and in a 2022 Uttar Pradesh survey, 53 percent of smartphone users reported seeing rally photos or videos on their phones daily in the run-up to the state election. For first-time voters, the first exposure to issues like the CAA or the farm laws often comes not from television but from reels, memes, and forwarded messages.

The double edge of digital campaigning

The same tools that boost participation also carry serious risks. The unregulated nature of digital spaces enables the rapid spread of misinformation, fake news, and deepfake content, which can distort the electoral process and inflame polarization. By 2024, parties had moved from broad mass messaging toward data-driven, personalized voter targeting, raising fresh questions about privacy, manipulation, and the limits of regulation. Greater public awareness cuts both ways: voters are better informed than ever, yet also more exposed to coordinated efforts to mislead them.

What it all adds up to

Taken together, these threads describe a state-level politics that is more competitive, more fragmented, and more contested than at any point since independence. Regional parties have given voice to communities and concerns that the old order ignored, expanding democratic participation. At the same time, the growing weight of money and crime, and the volatility of digital campaigns, pose real challenges to the fairness and integrity of elections. The story of changing electoral patterns in the states is, ultimately, the story of a democracy that has become deeper and more representative, but also harder to keep clean.

What do you think? Do shifting caste-based alliances strengthen democracy by giving marginalized groups a voice, or do they reduce elections to pure arithmetic? And as social media reshapes campaigns, can greater voter awareness keep pace with the growing influence of money and misinformation?

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Table of Contents

From single-party dominance to a crowded field 🔗

Why regional parties took root 🔗

Shifting alliances: the rise of gathbandhan politics 🔗

The BSP-SP coalition in Uttar Pradesh 🔗

The proliferation of smaller caste-based parties 🔗

The growing influence of money 🔗

Business funding and the electoral bonds saga 🔗

The criminalization of politics 🔗

Why parties keep fielding tainted candidates 🔗

Social media and a more aware electorate 🔗

The double edge of digital campaigning 🔗

What it all adds up to 🔗