Role of Opposition Parties in Contemporary Indian Politics

India has a democratic multi-party system in which a single party rarely gains enough support to govern alone. Political opposition thus operates at both the coalition and party levels. At the first tier, regional alliances and/or national parties pool their strength to capture the apex of power from a ruling alliance that often comprises many parties of varying colors and hues. At the second tier, opposition parties deployed themselves against government parties within an alliance in competition to improve their relative standing within the broader coalition. The political landscape for opposition parties is both patterned and complex. Politicians engaged in this environment have long sought to maximize their chance of assuming the highest office of the state by entering the ruling alliance rather than remaining in opposition. Numerous academic and policy references comment on this in the Indian context, although the data related to opposition parties has been more limited than that on the governing side.