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by sidm83 2906 days ago
The government at federal level is still a very "noisy" affair. The ruling coalition though enjoying significant majority in lower house is far from simple majority in the upper house which holds elections once in 6 years. You only need to watch a few minutes of a session in action to realize it is well and truly a very noisy affair.

India saw the rise of regional parties with the parallel fall of the Congress party since the 90s. There are many states now where Congress has only namesake presence. This resulted in coalition rule at the federal level which was finally reversed in 2014 when BJP came to power with simple majority (though also as part of the NDA coalition). Subsequently it won most state elections, effectively gaining power in 19/31 states/union territories. But due to the bicameral nature of Indian parliament, it is far from majority in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House, where the MPs are indirectly elected). Because of this they have not been able to introduce many legislations.

1 comments

The government at federal level is still a very "noisy" affair.

Perhaps so. Perhaps not. I suspect we have different definitions of "noisy". There's also a tremendous gap between what you see in the media and how things actually work. That's one of the cornerstones of a corrupt system, sadly: the impenetrable nature of trying to observe it from the outside.

I wish you the best of luck. My advice is to acknowledge human nature and create systems that work with it. These systems tend to be the ones that are able to adapt and thrive over time.

I completely agree with your POV. Hoping corruption will go away is a fool's game indeed. Just trying to highlight that compared to US system of 2 party rule, India is a true multi party system since the 90s (from a faux one earlier when Congress dominated). The BJP lead coalition appears to be reversing this but its dominance is still far below the levels enjoyed by Congress from 1947 to late 80s. And there is good possibility of its dominance reducing starting from the state elections scheduled later this year.