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Notes By : Neetu Sachdeva

(Team Eduhap)
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 Political Parties
Why do we need political parties ?
→ Political Parties are easily one of the most visible
institutions in democracy a .
For most ordinary
citizens , democracy is equal to political parties .

→ Parties have become identified with social and political

divisions .

→ About hundred years few countries of the

ago there were

world that had any political party . Now there are few
that do not have parties .

Meaning of Political Party

→ A Political party of people who come
is
group a

together to contest elections and hold power in the

government .

→ They agree on some and programmes for the

policies
society with a view to promote the collective goods .

→ They try to persuade people why their policies are better

than others They seek to
.
implement these policies by
winning popular support through elections .

→ Parties reflect fundamental political divisions in a society .

Parties are about a part of the society and thus

involve PARTISANSHIP .

→ A party is y which part it stands for , which

known
policies it supports and whose interests it upholds .

Partisan → A person who is strongly committed to a

party .

Partisanship → It is marked by a tendency to take aside

and inability to take a balanced view on an issue .
 Components of Political Parties

-
X X

The Leaders The Active Members The Followers

Functions Of Political Parties

1 . Parties contest elections In most democracies elections
.
,

are fought mainly among the candidates put up by political

parties USA members and supporters of a party choose
.
,

its candidates In India , top . party leaders choose

candidates for contesting elections .

2. Parties put forward different policies and programmes

and the voters choose from them A .
government is expected
to base its policies the line taken by the RULING PARTY
on .

3. Parties play a decisive role in making laws for a country .

Forma rlly , laws are debated and passed in the legislature .

4. Parties form and run governments Parties recruit leaders .

,

train them and then make them ministers to run the

government in the way they want ,

5. Those parties elections play the role of

that lose in the
opposition to the parties in power , by voicing different
views and criticising government for its failures or wrong
policies .

6- Parties shape public opinion They .

raise and highlight
issues Parties have lakhs of members and
. activists
spread country
all over the .

7. Parties provide people access to government machinery

and welfare schemes implemented by governments .
 Necessity of Political Parties .

We need political party because I -

It is the most important element of the democracy .

To form and run the government .

They inform the people about the working of ruling

parties .

They work as a link between the public and government .

It is useful for the education of electorates and

electoral processes .

They make a policy

for the people when in government .

They are needed for aggregation , articulation and

organization of interests .

We understand the necessity of political parties

can

by imagining a situation without parties .

Every candidate in the elections will be independent .

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 .

No one will be responsible for how the country will be run .

How many parties should we have ?

In a democracy any group of citizens is free to form
a
politicary party .

More than 750 parties are registered with the Election

commission of India .

→ one Party system

Only one party is allowed to control and run the
government .

It is not a democratic option . Example -

China .
→ Two Party System
The two main parties have a serious chance of winning
majority of seats to form government Such party . a

is called two party system The United States of America

.

and the United Kingdom are examples of two-party

system .

→ Multi Party System

If several parties compete 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 multiparty system .

→ 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 ,

→ The multiparty system often appears very messy and

leads to political instability .

→
Party system is not something country can choose
any .

It evolves over a long time, depending on the nature of

society , its social and regional divisions , its history of politics
and its system of elections .

National Parties
→ Democracies that follow a federal system all over the
world tend to have two kinds of political parties that
are present in only one of the federal units and parties
that are present in several or all units of the federation .

Every party in the country has to register with the

Election commission .

→ Parties are
given a
unique symbol -

only the official

 candidates of that party can use that election
symbol .

→ Parties that privilege and some other special

get this
facilities are recognised by the Election commission
• '

for this purpose That is why these parties are called ,

.

recognised political parties

" "
.

Criteria of the proportion of votes and seats that

a party must get in order to be a recognised party .

A party that secures at least 6% of the total votes

in election to the Legislative Assembly of a state
an

and wins at least 2 seats is recognised as a state

party .

A party that secures at least 6% of the total votes

in Lok Sabha elections or Assembly elections in 4
States and wins at least 4 seats in the Lok Sabha
is recognised as a national party .

There are seven National Parties in India : -

1 . All India Trinamool Congress (AITC)

Launched on January 1998 under the
1

leadership of Mamta Banerjee .

Recognised as a national party in 2016 .

The party 's symbol is flower .

Committed to secularism and federalism .

Has been in power in West Bengal since 2011 .

 2. Bahujan Samaj Party ( Bsp)

Formed 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 .

Main base is in the state of Uttar Pradesh .

3- Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP)

Founded in 1980 by reviving the erstwhile

Bharatiya Jana Singh .

Formed by Syama Prasad Mukherjee in 1951 .

Wants to build a strong and Modern India by drawing

inspiration from India's ancient culture and values .

Its support base increased substantially in the 1990s .

Came to the power in 1998 as the leader of the National

Democratic Alliance (NDA)

Emerged as the largest party with 282 members in the

Lok Sabha elections .

4. Communist Party of India ( CPI)

Founded in 1925 .

Believes in Marxism-Leninism , secularism and democracy .

Opposed to the forces of secessionism and communalism .

Became weak after the spilt in the party in 1964 that

led to the formation of the CPI (M )
 -

5. Communist Party of India -

Marxist (CPI - M)

Founded in 1964 .

Believes in Marxism , Leninism .

Supports socialism , secularism and

democracy and opposes imperialism and

communalism .

Enjoys strong support in West Bengal ,

Kerala and Tripura
was in power in West Bengal without a break for 34 years .

6. Indian National Congress CIN C)

Popularly known as the
Congress Party .

Oldest parties of the world .

Founded in 1885 and has experienced

many splits .

Played a dominant role in Indian politics

at the national and state level for several
decades after India 's Independence .

7- Nationalist Congress Party (HCP )

Formed in 1999 following a split in the Congress

Party.

Espouses democracy ,
Gandhian secularism ,

equity social justice

,
and federalism .

Wants that high offices in government be confined to

natural born citizens of the country .

A major party in Maharashtra and has a significant

presence in Meghalaya Manipur and Assam ,
.
 State Parties
Other than these seven parties most,
of the major
parties of the country are classified by the Election
commission as
•
state parties ?
Parties like Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata
Dal have national level political organisation with
units in several states .

Some of these parties like Biju Janata Dal ,

Sikkim
Democratic Front , Mizo National Front and Telangana
Rashtra Samithi are conscious about their state
identity .

Over the last three decades , the number and strength

of these parties
expanded has .

This made the Parliament of India politically more

and more diverse .

to Political Parties
Challenges
→ All over the world , people express strong dissatisfaction
with the failure of political parties to perform their
functions well .

→ The first challenge is lack of internal deficiency within

parties .
All over the world there is tendency in political
partiestowards the concentration of power in one or

few leaders at the top .

→ The leaders assume greater power to make decisions in

the name of the party .

→ since one few leaders exercise paramount power in

or

the party , those who disagree with the leadership find

it difficult to continue in the party .

→ 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 .

→ The third challenge is about the growing role of

money
and muscle power in parties , especially during elections .

→ Rich people and companies who give funds to the parties

tend to have influence on the policies and decisions
of the party .

→ In some cases
, parties support criminals who can win
elections .

→
The fourth challenge is that very often parties do not
seem to offer meaningful choice to the voters
a .

→ In our country too , the differences among all the major

parties the economic policies have reduced
on .

→
sometimes people cannot even elect very different
leaders either because the same set of leaders
, keep
shifting from one party to another .

How can Parties be reformed ?

Recent efforts and suggestions in our country to reform

political parties and its leaders : -

l . The Constitution was amended to prevent elected MLAs and

MPs from changing parties This . was done because many
elected representatives were indulging in DEFECTION in
order to become ministers or for cash rewards .

Defection →
changing party allegiance from the party
on which a
person got elected ( to legislative body ) a

to a different party .
2 .
The Supreme Court passed an order to reduce the
influence of money and criminals Not it is mandatory .
,

for every candidate who contests elections to file an

AFFIDAVIT giving details of his property and criminal
cases pending against him .

Affidavit → A signed document submitted to an

officer ,
where a person makes a sworn statement

regarding her personal information .

3- The Election Commission passed an order making it

political parties
necessary for to hold their
organisational
elections and file their income tax returns .

Besides these many suggestions

,
are often made to
reform political parties .

Suggestions 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 independent authority to act as a
an ,

judge in case of party 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 .

3 .
There should be state funding of elections . The
 a

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 .

These suggestions have not yet been accepted by

political parties .

There two ways in which

are political parties can

be reformed .

1. → People put pressure on political parties This

can .

can be done through petitions publicity and agitations , .

→
Ordinary citizens , pressure groups and movements
and the media can play an important role in this .

→ If political parties feel that they would lose public

support by not taking up reforms ,they would become
more serious about reforms .

2. → Political parties can improve if those who want to

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 critise from the
outside .

The problem of bad politics can be solved by more

and better politics .