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The period between 1989-2009 was one of growth and ascendancy of State parties in India. Using a combination of strategies of caste based political mobilisation and electoral alliances, these parties expanded their horizon and emerged as dominant players in national politics. In the process, they contributed to deepening India's electoral democracy. But, why do people vote for State parties, which are local or regional, to the Parliament? How are State parties and their Members in the Parliament different from that of national parties? What and how do State party members represent their constituencies and their interest in the Parliament? This book attempts to answer some of these perplexing questions on the basis of an empirical study of the 14th Lok Sabha. Drawing data from a variety of primary sources, the book attempts to unravel the social bases of State parties, the parliamentary performance of their members, the dialectics between electoral choice and party performance within the institutional framework of national politics. Dr. Manisha Madhava is Associate Professor & Head of the Department of Political Science, SNDT Women's University, Mumbai. She has taught Political Science for over twenty years in prestigious institutions across the country including Loreto College, Kolkata, Centre for Research in Social Sciences & Education (CERSSE), Bangalore. She has also been a visitingfaculty at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Dr. Madhava has received the Rajya Sabha Fellowship for study of Parliament (2009), ICSSR Major Research Project (2012) and Sponsored Research Project (2014). She is working on an ICSSR Major Research Project on Women as “Digital Subjects” :Participation, Negotiating Vulnerabilities and Building Empowerment. She has many publications to her credit including an edited volume entitled, Parliamentary Democracy in India: Problems and Prospects (Anthem, 2009). She writes regularly for newspapers and magazines.