Politics of Opposition and Union-State Relations

Federalism is a basic feature of the Indian Political System. Since Independence it has undergone several phases of stresses and strain prominently reflected in the Union-State Relations over the years. Apart from the constitutional provision, the political forces and factors operating at both union and state levels have primarily influenced the tone of Union-State relations in India. The present book deals with a very significant phase of Union-State relations in India at a time when the Congress was ruling at the union level and non-Congress governments were at the helm of affairs at the state level. It is a study of the attitude of non-Congress governments in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh towards union government on different issues of relevance to both the government. One of the highlights of the study is that it studies the attitude of one ideologically strong political party and the other a purely regional outfit. The study made in the book is sufficiently comparative and critically analyses all those political elements, which led to the changing contours of union-state relations in India during the period of study. The study is based on government documents and other primary and secondary source materials published by the Union, State government and others.