ABSTRACT
This essay provides an overview of the main challenges confronting Indian federalism in the period following the general election of April-May 2014-an election that brought about profound changes to the context in which centre-state relations in India are worked out. Against most predictions, the 2014 general election restored a single-party majority in the Lok Sabha, for the first time since 1984.1 The operation of Indian federalism has long been tied to the formation of coalitions in the central Government (‘the Centre’), in which some parties with a regional support base have played a key part. Given that the working of Indian federalism over recent decades has been closely interconnected with a diversified and fragmented party system, in which regional parties play a leading role, would the resumption of single-party government at the Centre herald a gradual centralization of power in the Indian federal system? To address this question, this essay is structured as follows. First, it briefly elaborates
on the factors that led to changes in the political status quo in 2014, as well as discussing state assembly elections that have been held since the general election. Subsequently, the essay assesses the implications for Indian federalism of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) majority at the Centre in three domains: (i) the extent to which the Centre is likely to involve the states in the development of policies that would affect their autonomy, through the remodelling of so-called shared-rule institutions; (ii) the extent to which the reform of the fiscal architecture of India, in particular the implementation of the Fourteenth Finance Commission Report, the reduction in Centrally Sponsored Schemes and the introduction of a goods and services tax (GST), will affect the fiscal and financial self-rule of the states; and (iii) the management of territorial diversity, not only with regard to further state reorganization-taking stock of the formation of Telangana as one of the last acts of the outgoing United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government in 2014-but also in relation to critical border states such as Kashmir and Nagaland.
