When the National Democratic Alliance led by Narendra Modi assumed office in 2014 after a spectacular victory at the electoral hustings, he had promised to rewrite the center-state relations so as to effectively move away from centralised federalism of the past towards cooperative federalism. After some promising starts in the direction of cooperative federalism, the general drift of the federal -relational movement was towards centralization of power in the Union government, with open espousal for BJP’s ‘double engine’ governments at the centre and states. There was a slide down on federal rhetoric as well. This paper dwells on the centre -state relations during the Modi regime. This paper is based on the assumption that the dynamics of federal relations, inter alia, is mainly, shaped by transformations in the nature of the party system, as evident during the coalition era, but under certain conditions such as the ideology of the party in power, and the personality of the leader, the federalization process in the parliamentary-federal form of government that had gained momentum can even get reversed. After examining the dynamics of centre-state relations, based on a critical appreciation of the literature, this paper posits that cooperative federalism in the course of the last nine years or so has given rise to a new notion of ‘national federalism’, but one which is deeply resented by non-Hindutva political formations.
RAJENDRA DAYAL - (Sat,) studied this question.