News from PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
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For immediate release: May 17, 2004
Media contact: Patricia Allen, (609) 258-6108, pallen@princeton.edu
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Although India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the outgoing Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee were dealt a stunning defeat in parliamentary elections on May 13, the losses do not necessarily signal the demise of the party and its political influence, according to Atul Kohli, a Princeton University professor of politics who has studied India's political structure.
"What the elections mean is still up for grabs," said Kohli, the David K.E. Bruce Professor of International Affairs and professor of politics in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. "The popular support for BJP has not declined by all that much. The share of the vote of the winning party, the Congress led by Sonia Gandhi, has actually declined compared to the 1999 election."
Kohli is available for interviews to provide analysis on India's incoming coalition government and the country's political climate. He and other scholars can be contacted through Patricia Allen at (609) 258-6108.
Kohli, a member of Princeton's faculty since 1983, specializes in comparative politics, international relations, and politics and development in India. He is the author of "The State and Poverty in India: The Politics of Reform" and "Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Governability." He has edited several books, including "The State and Development in the Third World," "India's Democracy: An Analysis of Changing State-Society Relations," "State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World," "Community Conflicts and the State of India" and "The Success of India's Democracy." He also served as editor of the journal World Politics.