UPA
United Progressive Alliance is a coalition of left political
parties in India formed after the 2004 general elections. In the UPA is Indian
National Congress, whose president Sonia Gandhi is also the chairperson of the
UPA. Subsequently the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, and the Council
of Ministers are drawn from members of the UPA.
The UPA formed soon after the 2004 general elections when it
had become clear that no party had won an absolute majority. The Left Front
with 59 MPs (excluding the speaker of the Lok Sabha), the Samajwadi Party with
39 MPs and the Bahujan Samaj Party with 19 MPs were other significant blocks
that opted to support UPA at various phases of its rule. The UPA did not enjoy
a simple majority on its own in the parliament, rather it has relied on the
external support to ensure that it enjoys the confidence of the Indian
parliament similar to the formula adopted by the previous minority governments
of the United Front, the NDA, the Congress government of P. V. Narasimha Rao,
and earlier governments of V. P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar.
UPA survived a vote of confidence in the parliament on 22 July
2008 after left parties withdrew their support. Support from the Samajwadi
Party was significant in this. In the Indian General Election in 2009, the UPA
won 262 seats, of which the INC accounted for 206. Inclusive and populist
policies along with a younger leadership has been credited for this.
Current members
Indian National
Congress (206 MPs)
Nationalist
Congress Party (9 MPs)
Rashtriya Lok Dal
(5 MPs)
Jammu &
Kashmir National Conference (3 MPs)
Indian Union
Muslim League (3 MPs)
Kerala Congress
(Mani) (1 MP)
Sikkim Democratic
Front (1 MP)
All India United
Democratic Front (1 MP)
jjjj Outside support is provided by:
Samajwadi Party:
(22 MPs)
Bahujan Samaj
Party: (21 MPs)
Rashtriya Janata
Dal: (10 MPs)
The total is 276 MPs which is above the requisite 273 MPs to
stay in power.
Withdrawals
Telangana Rashtra
Samithi
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) was the first party to
quit the alliance, first when its ministers quit the Andhra Pradesh government,
and finally when an official withdrawal was done at the national level by its
president K. Chandrashekar Rao, who resigned his Lok Sabha seat.
Marumalarchi Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), began its
drift when it tied up with the UPA's rival All India Anna Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (AIADMK) during the Tamil Nadu elections, and on March 16, 2007
officially withdrew support from the government.
Bahujan Samaj Party
On 21 June 2008, the Bahujan Samaj Party, or the BSP, with
18 seats, announced withdrawal of its support after the Congress starting
opposing the UP government where the BSP was the ruling party. Their leader
Mayawati said that she wouldn't enter an electoral alliance with either the
Congress or the BJP. She also accused both parties of misusing the Central
Bureau of Investigation or the CBI and attempting to implicate her in the Taj
Corridor Case. She also accused Congress of making false promises to help the
people of Bundelkhand and Poorvanchal regions as they were suffering from
drought.[20]
Left Front
On 8 July 2008, Prakash Karat, the general secretary of the
Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI (M)), announced that the Left Front
would be withdrawing support over the decision by the government to go ahead
with the Indo-US nuclear deal, a Section 123 Agreement with the United States.
People's Democratic
Party
On 4 January 2009, Mehbooba Mufti, president of the People's
Democratic Party announced the withdrawal of the PDP from the UPA given that
the Congress had decided to support the Omar Abdullah-led National Conference
Government in Jammu & Kashmir after the 2008 state elections.
Pattali Makkal Katchi
On 26 March 2009, PMK declared that it would join the AIADMK
led front and withdrew from the UPA and the party president declared that two
union ministers of his party will resign shortly.
All India
Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen
On 12 November 2012, Barrister Asaduddin Owaisi, leader of
the AIMIM announced the decision of the party's executive and declared that his
party would now go after the state government for its "communal" and
"anti-people" policies. Addressing a news conference, Owaisi said his
party was compelled to take the decision due to "the communal behaviour of
Kiran Kumar Reddy's government in Andhra Pradesh". Giving a detailed
account of communal riots in the state and Hyderabad since 2010, he alleged
that the Congress government not only turned a blind eye to MIM's demands to
withdraw cases against innocent Muslims and take action against the guilty but
pandered to the Sangh Parivar. The MIM's decision came after the government
allegedly allowed construction of a canopy over a temple abutting the historic
Charminar in alleged violation of court orders to maintain status quo. Owaisi
criticized the chief minister for ignoring the high court order to maintain
status quo.
Trinamool Congress
On 18 September 2012, TMC Chief, Mamata Banerjee, announced
her decision to withdraw support to the UPA after the TMC's demands of rollback
of reforms including FDI in retail, increase in the price of diesel and
limiting the number of subsidised cooking gas cylinders for households, were
not met.
Jharkhand Vikas
Morcha
On 1 October 2012 the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, led by Babulal
Marandi, withdrew the support of its two MPs to the UPA government. The JVM was
part of the UPA. Though this did not impact the stability of the government,
the JVM's withdrawal of support came two weeks after a major UPA ally, the Trinamool Congress, pulled out of the
alliance.
The reason for JVM's withdrawal was the same as the
Trinamool's; against the decision to implement 51% FDI in Retail Businesses and
the Hike in Diesel Prices.
Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam
On October 17, 2012 14 DMK MPs, including central ministers
T.R. Baalu and A. Raja was forced to handed in their post-dated resignation
letters to the head of the party, due to Spectrum corruption Scandal. The party
leaders M.K.Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi executed the 2G scandal with then
Information Technology minister Andimuthu Raja and caused billions of rupees of
loss to Government of India. During the investigation, they found a huge sum of
money has been exchanged to DMK party leader Karunanidhi's wife’s T.V channel.
The UPA alliance, particularly Congress, has lost its confidence among the
people of India due to several corruption charges.
The DMK pulled out of the UPA government on 19 March 2013
over the issue of a draft resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council
of the alleged human rights' violations of Sri Lankan Tamils.
Thus this is all the basic information we could collect for
this write-up. We will be explaining about the various schemes, election
agendas, major leaders and all the possible information about the coalition
during our group presentation. The various accusations, controversies,
achievements and failures will also be discussed and also the future
prospective of the coalition in the upcoming 2014 elections and the lost
grounds.
Therefore, whatever information could be collected for this
task have been put in this essay. More explanations and discussions will be
done during group presentation sessions.
Group 10 | Topics-(Vellaism & UPA) | |||
Name | Enrollment Number | |||
Saif Ullah | A12405212060 | |||
Abdul Aleem | A12405212018 | |||
Jatan Tripathi | A12405212047 | |||
Lokesh Tokas | A12405212080 | |||
Ankur Wadhwa | A12405212042 |
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