GLOCAL Jan 2014 | Page 37

By this time different regional parties has emerged and regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party that rules Uttar Pradesh, Mamata Banerjee‘s Trinamool Congress, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in power in southern The upcoming May 2014 Election of India is one of the most important and critical event where the prime contestant are United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led by centre-left and secular party Congress, a led by Nehru-Gandhi family established in 1947 and NDA is led by BJP, which is a right-wing Hindu nationalist party. Prime Ministerial candidate for the BJP is Narendra Modi, a successful Chief Minister of Gujarat since 2001 and Rahul Gandhi, Vice President of the Indian National Congress. The notable success of last BJP government was a stable economic growth rate and improving relation with neighbouring states including Pakistan. The major criticism of BJP was and still is 2002 Gujarat riot. But recently a huge relief came to the party and party‘s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi as the Ahmedabad metropolitan magistrate court held the report of the SIT (Special Investigation Team constituted by the Supreme Court) over the Gulbarg Society Massacre that once again gave a clean chit to Narendra Modi. The order which ruled out Narendra Modi‘s alleged role behind the 2002 Gujarat 34 In the 2004 Lok Sabha election, Sonia Gandhi campaigned across the country with the slogan of ‗Aam Admi‘. Following the defeat of NDA in 2004 elections, she was chosen to head the 15-party alliance – the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) along with the Left to head the government. She declined the opportunity to assume the office of Prime Minister and handed over to Dr. Manmohan Singh, a prominent economist. After having another landslide victory in 2009 she again relinquish the opportunity to previous successful Prime Minister Mr. Singh, however, retained the post of Leader of Majority and the Chairperson of Congress Parliamentary Party. Tamil Nadu province and Aam Admi party in Delhi. The emergence of new parties has made politics of vote much more complex than ever. Page parties. This government collapsed within a year due to the pull out of AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam). This led to elections in 1999. And this time BJP led NDA was elected with a popular mandate and it served its full term. Sonia Gandhi, Italian born Rajiv Gandhi‘s widow, was elected the Leader of Opposition of the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999, who entered politics in 1997.