Political Party
Q1. What is meant by a political party? (2015 D, 2015 OD)
Answer:
Political party is a group of people who come together to contest elections and to hold power in the
government. They agree on some policies to promote collective good. They seek to implement those
policies by winning popular support through elections. Thus political parties tend to fill political
offices and exercise political power.
Q2. What are the three main components of a political party? (2011 OD)
Answer: Components of a political party are:
a. The leaders,
b. active members and
c. the followers.
a. The leaders are recruited and trained by parties. They are made ministers to run the
government. The big policy decisions are taken by the political executives that come from the
political parties.
b. Parties have lakhs of members and activists spread over the country. Many of the pressure
groups are the extensions of political parties among different sections of society. But since
most of the members belong to a party, they go by the direction of the party leadership,
irrespective of their personal opinion.
c. The followers are the ordinary citizens, who believe in the policies of their respective party
and give popular support through elections. Often the opinion of the followers crystallise on
the lines parties take.
Q 3. What is a multi-party system? Why has India adopted a multi-party system? Explain.
Answer:
Multi-party system. In this system, the government is formed by various parties coming together in a
coalition. When several parties in a multi-party system join hands for the purpose of contesting
elections and winning power, it is called an alliance or a front.
For example, in India there were three major alliances in 2004 parliamentary elections—the National
Democratic Alliance (NDA), the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the Left Front. This system on
one hand leads to political instability but at the same time, allows for a variety of interests and
opinions to enjoy political representation.
Each country develops a party system that is suitable for its special circumstances. India has evolved
as a multi-party system because its social and geographical diversity cannot be absorbed by two or
three parties. Thus, such representation strengthens democracy. Multi-party system facilitates
representation of regional and geographical diversities. In India, several regional parties are in power
at the State level such as the DMK in Tamil Nadu, Akali Dal in Punjab the BSP in Uttar Pradesh.
Q4. “Lack of internal democracy within parties is the major challenge to political parties all over the
world”. Analyse the statement. What are the other challenges of a Political Party.
Answer:
Most political parties do not practise open and transparent procedures for their functioning like
maintaining membership registers, holding organisational meetings or conducting internal elections
regularly. Thus, ordinary members of the party do not get sufficient information on the happenings in
the party and have no means to influence the decisions.
Also, there are very few chances for an ordinary worker to rise to the top in a party. Since one or, at
the most, a few leaders exercise paramount power in the party, those who disagree with the
leadership, find it difficult to continue in the party.
Those who happen to be the leaders are in a position to take undue advantage and favour people
close to them or even their family members. And, in many parties, the top positions are invariably
controlled by members of one family which is bad for democracy.
Q 5.What is meant by a ‘national political party’? State the conditions required to be a national
political party. What is meant by regional political party? State the conditions required to be
recognised as a ‘regional political party’.
Answer:
National political parties have their units in various states. By and large all these units follow the
same policies, programmes and strategy that is decided at the national level.
Conditions required to be a national political party:
A party that secures at least 6% of the total votes in general elections of Lok Sabha or assembly
elections in four states.
A party that wins at least 4 seats in the Lok Sabha.
A regional party is a party that is present in only some states. Regional parties or State parties need
not be regional in their ideology. They have state identity as they are present only in some states.
Some of these parties are all India parties that happen to have succeeded only in states. Example,
Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janta Dal.
Conditions required for a party to be recognized as a regional political party:
A party that secures atleast six percent of the total votes in an election to the legislative assembly of
a state.
Wins atleast two seats in the legislative assembly.
