� NATURE OF PARTY SYSTEM IN INDIA ��

Topic Cover –B.A Sem-IV

Submitted By

Dr. Jiwan Devi

Dept. of Political Science

HMV Jalandhar, Punjab, India

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INTRODUCTION

Indian party system is unique. It does not fit in any kind of classification that is generally used to categorize the party systems. In the last two decades, there has been a substantial change both in the nature of politics as well as in nature of relationship between the state and the society. That explains the change in the nature of the party system as well.

DEFINITION OF POLITICAL PARTIES

Gilchrist has written while clarifying the meaning of political parties, "A political party may thus be defined as an organized group of citizens who profess to share the same political views and who by acting as a political unity try to control the government."

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REGISTRATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES

• Under an amendment made in the Representation of the People's Act, 1951, in December 1988, a provision has been made for the registration of every political party.
• For this purpose, the old political parties within 60 days and new political parties within 30 days will give an application for registration to the Election Commission

MULTIPARTY SYSTEM

1 Indian National Congress.

2 Bhartiya Janta Party.

3 Communist Party of India (Marxist).

4 Communist Party of India.

5 Bahujan Samaj Party.

6 Nationalist Congress Party.

7 Trinamool Congress Parties.

8 National People's Party

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THE MULTI-PARTY CHARACTER OF OPPOSITION

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At present, both at the national and state level there are so many national and regional political parties playing the role of opposition but they are not united on various political issues nor they have any common programme.

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LACK OF IDEOLOGICAL COMMITMENT

• Most political parties in India lack ideological commitment. Almost all the political parties express their faith in secularism, democracy and socialism, but they throw these principles to the wind when need arises and compromise with the poltical parties based on communalism, racialism etc.

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COMMUNAL AND CASTE CHARACTER OF POLITICAL PARTIES

There is special influence of caste and religion on the people of India and they owe special loyalty towards their caste and religion. Because of this, the clever politicians have formed political parties on the basis of caste and religion etc and during elections, they exploit the caste and religious sentiments of the people and they ask for their votes.

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IMPORTANCE OF REGIONAL PARTIES

The goverments formed in the centre under the leadership or say. the Binari vajpayee and Dr. Manmohan Singh were dependent on the support of regional poitical parties and during the regime of these governments the regional political parties had taken fur advantage of their support to these government. As a result of the elections of the 16th and 17th Lok Sabha almost after a gap of 30 years single political party was able to get absolute majority in the centre to form the government.

As a result of this the dependence of the goverment on the support of the regional political parties has decreased. Yot 28 reciona political parties were the constituent of the National Democratic Alliance- NDA formed under the leadership of Sh. Narendra Modi. We cannot ignore the importance of regional political parties because at present the regional parties are in power in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha, Andra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir etc…

PERSONALITY CULT

• Before independence our social, political and economic set-up was based on feudal values but this set up did not witness any specific change after the attainment of independence.
• Even today, aristocrats and elites exercise their control over politics and political parties. People have a strong feeling of personality worship.
• They have more faith in the leader of the party than ideology of the party.

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LACK OF INTERNAL DEMOCRACY WITHIN THE POLITICAL PARTIES

• The Political Parties in our country lack internal democracy. Almost all the.
• Political Parties have not held elections of the party organizations at different levels for a long time.
• High officials of the Party, members of the executive and Parliamentary Boards are generally nominated by the Party High Command and they are changed when the need arises for the same Lack of proper organisation

Lack of Proper Organisation

• Organisation is the life and soul of Political Parties.But there are political parties in India which have failed to maintain their organisation at provincial level. Hindu Maha Sabha, Muslim League, Swatantra Party, National Socialist Congress, Republican Party are such parties. Such parties cannot propagate their policies and programmes properly. Besides, there are several parties in India which possess leader but not cadre and a party has no significance without cadre

ELECTORAL ALLIANCES AND COALITION GOVERNMENTS

After Independence till 1967, in states and till 1977 in the Centre the pure governments of the Congress Party had remained in power. But after this, since the monopoly of the Congress Party over political power had ended, the period of coalition governments had started both in the Centre and the States which continued till date.

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LACK OF DISCIPLINE AMONG MEMBERS OF POLITICAL PARTIES

It is noticed that de members of different political parties do not bother about the party discipline, rather the remain busy in mud slinging on each other. Whenever any leader fails to get party ticket, he immediately deserts his parent party and joins another or form different political party.

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USE OF EXTRA-CONSTITUTIONAL MEANS TO GET POWER

• To get political power with the use of constitutional methods in the legitimate right of the political parties and for this purpose the political parties contest election, organize political rallies to win the support of the voters and propagate their policies and programme through radio, television and news papers etc.
• All these are constitutional methods.
• But along with the use of constitutional means, the political parties do not hesitate to use unconstitutional means, to get political power.

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POPULIST NATURE OF POLITICAL PARTIES

It is generally observed that in India, political parties in order to acquire power, take recourse to populist politics. They take undue advantage of the sentiments and compulsions of the people, raise populist slogans and mislead the innocent people. For instance in 1971, Congress gave the slogan of 'Gribi Hatao' and in 1975, it tried to get the support of the people by formulating 20 point programme. During1977 elections, Janta Party raised the slogan of 'Democracy versus Diotatorship' and Congress gave the slogan of 'Stability versus Anarchy.

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CONCLUSION

It is a different type of party system in the world. It may not be wrong to call it an Indian Model of Party System. Since India is a 'Union of States' and wide social, economic, cultural, lingual and regional differences are found among different states. Because of these regional diversities, we find different regional parties in each state and for the last few years the regional parties have become quite strong. Though during the elections of the 16th Lok Sabha the regional political parties have suffered a big loss, yet the national political parties except BJP have also suffered a great loss. Even the status of the national political parties is in a danger of political parties like Bahujan Samaj Party, Nationalist Congress Party, CPI and CPI(M).

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