The Preamble to the Indian Constitution declares the country to be Sovereign, Secular, Socialist, Democratic and Republic. India is a federation, meaning that despite the existence of a central government to assume the executive duties as legislated by the people's representatives, there also exists a local government based on the same model as the central administration. The government is chosen by free and fair polls held at regular intervals. These polls are contested by the representatives of various factions of people who believe in a variety political ideologies. This is known as the multiparty system. Now political parties in India may be national parties or state level parties. The Election Commission of India accepts a party as National if it is recognized in 4 or more states. If not the party is accorded the state party status. The people of Kerala are extremely politically conscious and take active interest in the political happenings in the state. Most of the political parties of the state belong to the UDF led by Congress (I) or to LDF led by CPI (M). The important national parties that have made their place in the realm of Kerala Politics are:

BJP - Bharatiya Janata Party ("Indian People's Party", under the leadership of Rajnath Singh). The party symbol of the BJP is the lotus. For more on the party’s ideology please refer to http://www.bjp.org/

Communist Party of India (CPI under the leadership of Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan). The party’s symbol isan emblem encompassing ears of maize and a sickle and its ideologies may be read on their site http://www.cpindia.org/

Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M) under the leadership of Prakash Karat) contests the polls under the symbol of hammer, sickle and star. The parties ideals are available at http://www.cpim.org/

Indian National Congress (INC under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi) uses the hand symbol to represent the party ideologies. For more information select link http://www.congress.org.in/

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP under the leadership of Sharad Pawar) is another national party in Kerala which uses the symbol of a clock and to refer to this party’s ideals please read the following link. http://www.ncp.org.in/

The current Chief Minister, Sri. V.S.Achuthanandan of Kerala is a Polit Bureau member of Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)).

Last Updated on 31 May 2011

Kerala Government and Politics