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1 1 (May 31, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govzxa0001 and id is 1 raw text is: ' Congressional Research Service lnfo rmg the legislative debate since 1914 India's Domestic Political Setting Updated May 31, 2019 Overview India, the world's most populous democracy, is, according to its Constitution, a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic where the bulk of executive power rests with the prime minister and his Council of Ministers (the Indian president is a ceremonial chief of state with limited executive powers). Since its 1947 independence, most of India's 14 prime ministers have come from the country's Hindi-speaking northern regions, and all but 3 have been upper-caste Hindus. The 543-seat Lok Sabha (House of the People) is the locus of national power, with directly elected representatives from each of the country's 29 states and 7 union territories. The president has the power to dissolve this body. A smaller upper house of a maximum 250 seats, the Rajya Sabha (Council of States), may review, but not veto, revenue legislation, and has no power over the prime minister or his/her cabinet. Lok Sabha and state legislators are elected to five-year terms. Rajya Sabha legislators are elected by state assemblies to six-year terms; 12 are appointed by the president. Elections to seat India's 17th Lok Sabha were held in April and May 2019, when the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, or Indian Peoples Party) won a sweeping and repeat victory under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In 2014, the BJP had become the first party to attain a parliamentary majority in 30 years, and it was able to expand that majority in 2019 to become the first party to win consecutive majorities since 1971. Modi, a self-avowed Hindu nationalist, ran a campaign seen as divisive by many analysts. While he and his party have long sought to emphasize development and good governance, five years in office have brought a mixed record, and this election cycle revolved around nationalism, with growing concerns among many observers that strident Hindu majoritarianism represents a threat both to India's religious minorities and to the country's syncretic traditions. Still, hundreds of millions across the country voted to keep the remarkably popular prime minister in power for another term. The BJP, under then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, previously had led a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition in power from 1999 to 2004. The Indian National Congress Party (hereinafter Congress Party) and its United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition, in power from 2004-2014 with Manmohan Singh in the top office, suffered a second consecutive electoral rout. The party of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, Congress had dominated the country's politics from 1947 to 1977. Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi (no relation to Mohandas Gandhi), and her son, Rajiv, also served as prime minister; both were assassinated in office. The party's presumed prime ministerial candidate in 2014 and 2019, Rajiv's son, Rahul, again oversaw a failure to win even the 10% of seats required to officially lead the Lok Sabha opposition. The BJP and Congress are India's only genuinely national parties. In previous recent national elections they together won roughly half of all votes cast, but in 2019 the BJP boosted its share to nearly 38% of the estimated 600 million votes cast (to Congress's 20%; turnout was a record 67%). The influence of regional and caste-based (and often family-run) parties-although blunted by two consecutive BJP majority victories-remains a crucial variable in Indian politics. Such parties now hold nearly one-third of Lok Sabha seats. In 2019, more than 8,000 candidates and hundreds of parties vied for parliament seats; 33 of those parties won at least one seat. The seven parties listed below account for 84% of Lok Sabha seats (see Figure 1). Figure I. Party Representation in the I 7th Lok Sabha (543 total seats + 2 appointed) All others 165 SS .%:; 3% YSRCP 4% 11 Trinamool 4% 56%i DMK 4% 10% The BJP's economic reform agenda can be impeded in the Rajya Sabha, where opposition parties can align to block certain nonrevenue legislation (see Figure 2). Figure 2. Party Representation in the Rajya Sabha (233 total seats + 12 appointed) Rip All others 31% 34% AIADMK 5% Trinamool Samaiwadi 20% 5% 5%14 Key Government Officials Prime Minister Narendra Modi was chief minister of the economically dynamic and relatively developed western https:/crsreports.congress.go,

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