Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-109).This thesis is concerned with the phenomenon of Single Party Dominance (SPD) and the implications of such a phenomenon on the party system in post-Independence India. Specifically, the work is tasked with explaining how dominance can end by providing an analytical narrative of a single case of SPD and its collapse. This will be done by examining the precipitous decline of the Indian National Congress over a ten-year period from 1967, where Congress lost its first state-level elections, to 1977, where the party was finally rejected at the national level after three decades of dominance
