Political Parties

Q1. What is a political party? What are the characteristics of a political party?
A1. Political party is a group of people who come together to contest elections and hold power in the
government. They agree on some policies and programmes for the society with a view to promote the
collective goods. It has 3 components:
 The leaders
 The active members
 The followers.
Q2. Describe the role of political parties in Indian democracy.
A2. Indian democracy has a multi-party system political parties perform a series of function in a
democracy. These are:-
1. Parties contest elections. In most democracies, elections are fought mainly among the
candidates put up by political parties. Parties select their candidates in different ways. In India,
top party leaders choose candidates for contesting election.
2. Parties put forward different policies and programmes and the voters choose from them.
3. Parties play a decisive role in making laws for our country by making debate and passing law
for people.
4. Parties form and run government by recruiting leaders, train them and make them ministers to
run the government.
5. Parties shape public opinion by raising and highlighting important issues.
6. Those parties that lose in the elections play the role of opposition to the parties in power by
criticizing government for its failure or wrong policies.
7. Parties provide people access to government machinery and welfare schemes implemented by
government. Parties have to be responsive to people’s need and demands otherwise people
can reject those parties in the next elections.
Q3. Why do we need political party?
A3.
1. We can understand the necessity of political parties by imagining a situation without parties.
Every candidate in the elections will be independent. So no one will be able to make any
promises to the people about any major policy changes. The government may be formed, but
its utility will remain ever uncertain.
2. Elected representatives will be accountable to their constituency for what they do in the
locality. But no one will be responsible for how the country will be run.

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 3. The rise of political parties is directly linked to the emergence of representative democracies.
As we have seen large societies need representative democracy.
4. As societies became large and complex, they also needed some agency to gather different
views on various issues and to present these to the government.
5. They needed some ways, to bring various representatives together so that a responsible
government could be formed.
6. They needed a mechanism to support or restrain the government, make policies, justify or
oppose them. Political party fulfil these needs that every representative government has.
7. Hence, we can say that parties are a necessary condition for a democracy.
Q4 Explain One-Party System, Two-Party System and Multi-Party System.
A4. One-Party System
In some countries, only one party is allowed to control and run the government. These are
called one-party systems. People are free to form political parties, it does not happen because
the electoral system does not permit free competition for power. We can not consider one
party system as a good opinion because this is not a democratic opinion. Any democratic
system must allow at least two parties to compete in elections and provide a fair chance for
the competing party to come to power.
Two-Party system
Power usually changes between two main parties. Several other parties may exist, contest
elections and win a few seats in the national legislatures. But only the two main parties have a
serious chance of winning majority of seats to form government. Such a party system is called
two-party system. The United States of America and United kingdoms are examples of two-
party system.
Multi-Party System
In multi-party system party complete for power, and more than two parties have a reasonable
chance of coming to power either on their own strength or in alliance with others, we call it a
multi-party system. In India, we have 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 add as
alliance or a front.
Q5. How many parties should we have? Why India has adopted multi party system?
A5.

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 1. Party system is not something any country can choose. It evolved over a long time, depending
on the nature of society, its social and regional divisions, its history of politics and its system of
elections. These cannot be changed very quickly.
2. Each country develops a party system that is conditioned by its special circumstances.
3. India has evolved a multi-party system, it is because social and geographical diversity in such a
large country is not easily absorbed by two or even three parties. No system is ideal for all
countries and all situations.
Q6. How parties at regional level and national level are recognised by the election commission?
A6.
1. The Election Commission has laid down detailed criteria of the proportion of votes and seats
that a party must get in order to be recognised party.
2. A party that secures at least six percent of the total votes in an election to the Legislative
Assembly of a state and wins at least two seats is recognised as a state party.
3. A party that secures at least six percent of the total votes in Lok Sabha elections or assembly
elections in four states and wins at least four seats in the Lok Sabha is recognised as a national
party.
Q7. Write about some important national political parties of India?
A7. In 2006, there were six recognised national political parties in the country. These are :-
1. Indian National Congress (INC) - It is popularly known as the Congress party which is one of the
oldest parties of the world founded in 1885. It supports secularism and welfare of weaker
sections and minorities.
2. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - It was founded in 1980, by reviving the erstwhile Bharatiya Jana
Sangh. The aim of the party is to build a strong and modern India by drawing inspiration from
India's ancient culture and values. It came to the power in 1998 as the leader of the National
Democratic Alliance including several state and regional parties.
3. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) - It was founded in 1984, under the leadership of Kanshi Ram. Seeks
to represent and secure power for the Bahujan Samaj which includes the Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs
and religious minorities.
4. Communist Party Of India-Marxist (CPI-M) – it was founded in 1964 in believes in Marxism-
Leninism. Supports socialism, secularism and democracy and opposes imperialism and
communalism.
5. Communist Party of India (CPI) - Found in 1925, it believes in Marxism-Leninism, secularism
and democracy. It opposes the forces of secessionism and communalism.
6. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) – Founded in 1999, following a split in the Congress Party. It
supports democracy, Gandhan secularism, equality, social justice and federalism.

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Q8. Write a short note on State Parties.
A8. A party that secures at least 6% of the total votes in an election to the Legislative Assembly of a
state and wins at least two seats, is recognised as a state party. These are commonly referred to as
regional parties. Still such parties need not be regional in their ideology or outlook.
Some of the Regional parties are all India parties that happened to have succeeded only in some
states. Parties like the Samajwadi Party, Samata party and Rashtriya Janata Dal have National level
political organisations with units in several states. Some of these parties like Biju Janata Dal, Sikkim
Democratic Front and Mizo National Front are conscious about their state identity.
Over the last three decades, the number and strength of these parties has expanded. This made the
Parliament of India politically more and more diverse.
No national party is able to secure on its own a majority in Lok Sabha. As a result, the national parties
are compelled to form alliances with state parties. Since 1996, nearly every of the state parties has
got an opportunity to be a part of one or the other national level Coalition Government. This has
contributed to the strengthening of federalism and democracy in our country.
Q9. What are the challenges to political parties?
A9.
1. Lack of Internal Democracy - The first challenge is lack of internal democracy within parties. All
over the world there is a tendency in political parties towards the concentration of powers in
one or few leaders at the top. Parties do not keep membership registers, do not hold
organisational meetings, and do not conduct internal elections regularly. Ordinary members of
the party do not get sufficient information on what happens inside the party. They do not have
the means or the connections needed to influence the decisions.
2. Dynastic succession - The second challenge dynastic succession is related to the first one. Since
most political parties do not practice open and transparent procedures for their functioning,
there are very few ways for an ordinary worker to rise to the top in a party. Those who happen
to be the leaders are in a position of unfair advantage to favour people close to them or even
their family members. In many parties, top positions are always controlled by members of one
family. This is unfair to other members of that party. This is also bad for democracy, since
people who do not have adequate experience or popular support come to occupy positions of
power.
3. Money and Muscle Power - The third challenge is about the growing role of money and muscle
power in parties, especially during elections. Since parties are focussed only on winning
elections, they tend to use short-cuts to win elections. They tend to nominate those candidates
who have or can raise lots of money. Rich people and companies who give funds to the parties

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 tend to have influence on the policies and decisions of the party. In some cases, party support
criminals who can win elections.
4. Meaningful Choice - The fourth challenge is that very often parties do not seem to offer a
meaningful choice to the voters. In order to offer meaningful choice, parties must be
significantly different. In recent years there has been a decline in the ideological differences
among parties in most parts of the world. For example, the difference between the labour
party and the conservative party in Britain is very little. In our country too, the differences
among all the major parties on the economic policies have reduced. Sometimes people cannot
even elect very different leaders either, because the same set of leaders keep shifting from one
party to another.
Q10. How can parties be reformed?
A10. Some of the recent efforts and suggestions in our country to Reform political parties and its
leaders are :-
1. The constitution was amended to prevent elected MLAs and MPs from changing parties. This
was done because many elected representatives are indulging in defection in order to become
ministers or for cash rewards. Now the law says that if any MLA or MP changes parties, he or
she will lose the seat in the legislature. This new law has helped bring defection down.
2. The supreme court passed an order to reduce the influence of money and criminals. Now, it is
compulsory for every candidate who contest election to file an affidavit giving details of his
property and criminal cases pending against him. The new system has made a lot of
information available to the public but there is no system of check if the information given by
the candidate is true.
3. The election commission passed an order making it necessary for political parties to hold their
organisational elections and file their income tax returns. The parties has started doing so but
sometimes it is mere formality. It is not clear if this step has led to greater internal democracy
in political parties.
Q11. Mention some of the suggestions which are often made to reform political parties.
A11. Besides these, many suggestions are often made to reform political parties :-
1. A law should be made to regulate the internal affairs of political parties. It should be made
compulsory for political parties to maintain a register of its members, to follow its own
constitution, to have an independent authority, to act as a judge in case of partly disputes, to
hold open elections to the highest posts.
2. It should be made mandatory for political parties to give a minimum number of tickets, about
one-third, to women candidates. Similarly, there should be a quota for women in the decision
making bodies of the party.

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 3. There should be state funding of elections. The government should give parties money to
support their election expenses. This support could be given in kind: petrol, paper, telephone
etc. Or it could be given in cash on the basis of the votes secured by the party in the last
election.
Two other ways in which political parties can be reformed :-
1. People can put pressure on political parties this can be done through petitions, publicity and
agitations. If political parties feel that they would lose public support by not taking a preforms,
they would become more serious about reforms.
2. Political parties can improve if those who want this join political parties. The quality of
democracy depends on the degree of public participation. It is difficult to reform politics if
ordinary citizens do not take part in it and simply criticize it from the outside.

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