Centre and state relations in India

“Centre-State relations” of Indian Federalism constitute the core of federalism and they are regulated by
the provisions of the Constitution.

(i) The division of powers between the Union and the States, as given in the Indian Constitution has a
strong bias in favour of the Centre. Various kinds of restrictions are imposed upon the states.

(ii) Administrative relations. The Indian Constitution is based on the principle that the executive power is
co-extensive with the Legislative power i.e., Union and state executives can deal with all matters on which
legislature legislates.

(iii) In the administrative affairs also the Centre acquires control over states through All India Services,
Grant-in-Aid etc.
Hence, restructuring of the centre-state relations is one more way in which federalism has been
strengthened in practice.
Centre-state relation (1947-1990)
Constitutional arrangements for sharing power work in reality depends to a large extent on how the ruling
parties and leaders follow these arrangements.

In our country, for many years the same party ruled both at the Centre and in most of the States. This
meant that the state government didn’t exercised completely autonomous powers.

At times when the party at state government was different, the parties at the central govt tried to undermine
the powers of the states.

In those days central govt had much more powers than the state government, Thus, when there was a
different party at state level they would missuse their powers to overthrow them.
This cartoon perfectly depicts the situation of that time
Coalition Government
All this changed suddenly after 1990. this period saw beginning of a new era.

New regional parties were formed at the regional level in many states of the country.

This was also the beginning of coalition government.

Since no single party got a clear a clear majority in Lok Sabha, the major national parties had to enter into
an alliance with many parties including several regional parties to form a government at the Centre.

This form of govt promoted power-sharing amongst political parties and gave respect to the autonomy of
state government.

This type of govt was majorly supported by the supreme court

This cartoon clearly represents
the difficulty to manage a
coalition government. In a
coalition government, it just
requires one wrong decision and
all your support from other
parties is gone which in return
collapses your government.