The objective of this blog is to supplement the information provided on the PRS website, with more analysis, information, that might be useful for readers. We expect to discuss issues about legislation and policy on some occasions and about the functioning of Parliament at other times. Interesting Parliament trivia will also find their place on the blog from time to time. The Parliament itself puts up significant amount of information on its website, making it relatively easy for anyone tracking the institution to access data. But what we at PRS have tried to do is to add value to the information that we have accessed from Parliament, and make our products even more relevant to users. We hope readers of this blog will share their views with us on a range of issues. We know that a number of people both in India and abroad use our website as a resource on legislation and Parliament. Our somewhat tentative beginning on Twitter (www.twitter.com/prslegislative) is now being followed more widely. Recent updates from Twitter will also be displayed on the Blog. The only way in which our legislation will become better over time is when lots of people like us scrutinise issues in detail, engage with our law makers and ensure that the process takes into account the inputs of citizens from across the country. As we prepare ourselves for the upcoming Budget session of Parliament, we expect to post on our blog quite regularly. We hope you will find this useful in the weeks and months ahead! Please spread the word about this new blog, and thank you for all your continued support.
Elections to the 14th Legislative Assembly of Karnataka are scheduled to be held on May 5, 2013. Of the 224 assembly constituencies that will go into polls, 36 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and 15 for Scheduled Tribes. Voting will take place in 50,446 polling stations across Karnataka [1. Election Commission India]. In this blog, we analyse electoral trends between 1989 and 2008 and the performance of the current Karnataka Assembly.
Figure 1: Electoral trends since 1989, source: Election Commission of India, PRS.
In the last elections, held in 2008, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the government, winning 110 of the 226 seats in the Assembly. The BJP has steadily increased its seat share since 1989: it won four seats in 1989, 44 in 1999 and 79 in 2004. The Indian National Congress (INC) had a 179 seat majority in 1989 (79% of the assembly) which fell to 34 seats in 1994. The INC subsequently increased their tally from 65 seats in 2004 to 80 seats in 2008. However, the INC continued to have the highest share of votes polled (except in 1994) even as its share of seats decreased. The 1990s also saw the emergence of the Janata Dal (S) who won the 1994 elections with 115 seats. Janata Dal’s emergence is part of a broader theme of increased participation by regional parties in Karnataka. In 1989, 20 parties contested the elections, seven of which were national parties but in 2008, 30 parties contested, of which only five were national parties. Performance of the current Assembly As we approach the end of the term of the current Assembly, a brief look at its work from 2008 to 2013:
Figure 2: Days of sitting - Karnataka assembly, source: RTI, PRS.
