When the Central Player Fails: Constraints on Cabinet Formation in Contemporary India

From the first post–independence election in 1952 until the general elections of 1989, the Indian National Congress party won a plurality of the votes and a majority of the legislative seats in every national parliamentary election except for the one that was held in 1977. Although the party maintained its dominant position in the national party system for almost four decades, starting in 1967 it gradually lost it at the subnational level. Finally, the 1989 national election brought Congress dominance to a definite end in the national party system as well. Since 1989, Congress has neither remained the consistently strongest electoral party nor has it won a parliamentary majority in any single election.