Focused mainly on Maharashtra’s politics since the 1990s, The Last Fortress of Congress Dominance also provides its readers a clear view of the historical context and the socio-political forces that have dominated the state since the 1950s. The politics of Maharashtra has been woven around two key factors: the Congress party and the Marathas. Attempts by the Shiv Sena and the BJP to emerge as alternatives to the Congress have had only limited success so far. As the state politics witnesses the transition into a new party system, the book presents a detailed study on the party system of Maharashtra and situates the analysis in the broader context of crisis of the Marathas and the many distortions of the state’s political economy.
Aided by rich survey data from the National Election Studies, for all elections since 1996, the book presents a long-term view of the politics of Maharashtra as the state completes 60 years of its existence.
Deshpande, Rajeshwari: - Rajeshwari Deshpande is Professor of Politics at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune. She was the Indian Council for Cultural Relations visiting professor (Rajiv Gandhi Chair in Contemporary Indian Studies) at the University of Technology, Sydney, in 2014 and UK-India Education and Research Initiative visiting fellow at King's India Institute, London, in 2012. Her research interests are in areas such as intellectual traditions of Maharashtra, comparative state politics, politics of the urban poor, urban caste-class realities, women's politics and policies related to social welfare.
At present, she is the lead researcher in India for a European Commission-sponsored international research project, 'Cultural Heritage and Identities of Europe's Future' (CHIEF 2018-2021; http: //chiefproject.eu/), in which a consortium of eight European universities along with Savitribai Phule Pune University from India are partners. She is also the principal researcher at the Centre for Public Policy and Democratic Governance established by Savitribai Phule Pune University under research grants from RUSA Maharashtra.
Rajeshwari has been a member of the Lokniti network of Indian political scientists that conducts the National Election Studies in India and has worked on the nature of women's vote and the connect between welfare and vote in Indian elections using the NES data. She is a member of the editorial management team of the Lokniti/SAGE journal Studies in Indian Politics, where she also coordinates a discussion forum on 'Teaching and Learning Political Science in India'.
Rajeshwari has recently published an intellectual biography of a late colonial Gandhian intellectual from Maharashtra--Acharya Javdekar--in Marathi and has edited in 2015 Politics of Welfare: Comparisons across Indian States (with Louise Tillin and K. K. Kailash).
She has also published more than 30 research papers and book chapters in English as well as Marathi during the past 10 years and regularly contributes to the op-ed pages of English and Marathi newspapers.
Palshikar, Suhas: - Suhas Palshikar, based in Pune, India, taught political science from 1978 first at SP College, Pune, and later at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune (1989-2016). He is co-director of Lokniti, a research programme on comparative democracy, based at CSDS, Delhi, and chief editor of the biannual journal brought out by SAGE, Studies in Indian Politics. He was also the editor of Samaaj Prabodhan Patrika during 1990-2004.
He is associated with the National Election Study since the 1996 elections. He has also been involved in various research projects of Lokniti, focusing on study of public opinion in India. He was one of the principal investigators of the international project on Democracy in South Asia (Round One and Round Two).
Professor Palshikar writes in English and Marathi on contemporary politics and has also written extensively in academic publications on the theme of democratic politics in India. He has been a frequent contributor to The Indian Express and journals such as Seminar and EPW. His Marathi books include Maharashtratil Sattasangharsh (2007), Rajakarnacha Taleband (2013) and Desh Pradesh (2014). His recent publications include Indian Democracy (2017) and co-edited volumes in Electoral Politics in India: Resurgence of Bharatiya Janata Party (2017) and Party Competition in Indian States (2014). His forthcoming work includes a report on Politics and Society between Elections (with Siddharth Swaminathan, 2020).
Besides participating in many international seminars, he has been a visiting fellow at the University of Chicago and Brown University.
