WHERE THE POWER RESIDES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GUJARAT AND HIMACHAL PRADESH STATE ELECTIONS 2017

Gujarat and Himanchal these are the two states where elections held for the State Assembly simultaneously in 2017. Both the states have different socio-economic set ups besides that in their political institutions and processes there are some common characteristics. Bi-party system, gender inequality in political arena, accommodative trend of the diverse interest within the two parties and strong party leadership are prominent features of the state politics in both the states. Paper is an attempt to analyse the trends of state politics by comparing the socio economics ecologies and their impact on the state politics in Gujarat and Himachal. Entire study is based on the secondary data and personal observations of the researchers as primary data.