Party system

A party system is a concept in comparative political science concerning the system of

government by political partiesin a democratic country. The idea is that political parties
have basic similarities: they control the government, have a stable base of mass popular
support, and create internal mechanisms for controlling funding, information and
nominations.
The concept was originated by European scholars studying the United States,
especially James Bryce and Moisey Ostrogorsky, and has been expanded to cover other
democracies.[1] Giovanni Sartori devised the most widely used classification method for
party systems. He suggested that party systems should be classified by the number of
relevant parties and the degree of fragmentation. [2] Party systems can be distinguished
by the effective number of parties.[3]

Types of party systems[edit]

Dominant-party system: a system where there is "a category of parties/political

organizations that have successively won election victories and whose future defeat
cannot be envisaged or is unlikely for the foreseeable future".

Non-partisan system: a system of government or organization such that universal

and periodic elections take place without reference to political parties.

Single-party system: a system in which a single political party has the right to
form the government, usually based on the existing constitution.

Two-party system: a system where two major political parties dominate politics
within a government.

Multi-party system: a system in which multiple political parties have the capacity
to gain control of government offices, separately or in coalition.

PARTY SYSTEM IN INDIA

Political scientists throughout the world are divided in their opinions on the
importance of parties in a democracy, but the fact remains that the parties do exist
and play vital roles in all modern democratic states and indeed in most states,
whatever their ideological orientation. If India is to survive as a moving generally in
the democratic direction, it must evolve a healthier party system or develop some
effective alternatives to parties.
Almost all modern societies, democratic or totalitarian, developed or modernizing,
large or small have some sort of party system. Though the written constitution of
India, like many other written constitutions of the world, does not acknowledge the
existence of political parties, yet they are central to our political process. They are
both inevitable and necessary.
They are inevitable because they are the only means whereby power can be obtained
and exercised in an organized way. They are necessary because they form a bridge
between the government and the governed which gives meaning to representative
system.
Political parties are indispensible link between society and the government. In all
modern democratic systems, political parties play a decisive role. However, in the
third world countries, except India, free competition for popular support between
different parties is rare.
In India, after six decades of representative government and general elections, it has
maintained a parliamentary system based on competitive and free elections. In a
political system, parties act as the carrier of ideas, opinions and approaches to social
needs and national goals. Parties provide a link between the citizens and the
government, between the electorate and the representative institutions. In fact a
successful democracy requires a healthy party system for its existence. Political
parties are instruments through which citizens choose those who constitute the
government. They explain merits and dangers of alternate policies and provide
political education to the citizens. Political parties are extra constitutional institutions
which are crucial in running democratic government of a country. They are essential
for the proper functioning of different types of democratic government. The
successful democratic functioning of any government depends upon the healthy
political party system.

According to Finer, political parties are organised bodies with voluntary membership,
their concentrated energy being employed in the pursuit of political power. In a democratic
political system the most important institution is the political party. Between the
social and political systems a sub-system is being provided by political parties. The
strength of political party cannot be determined by its electoral performance alone.
The status of members, the assimilative capacity of its ideology, its strength in the
trade union field, the capacity for propaganda, influence over the key centers of the
economy, the capacity for neutralizing the electoral strength of the other parties, etc.
may be reckoned as the potential though not manifest strength of a political party.

CLASSIFICATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN INDIA

The types of political parties can be broadly classified into following categories:

National Parties: Any party to be called as national level political party must
fulfill following conditions:
It must have had its candidates stood for last elections in at least four or more
States for Lok Sabha or for Legislative Assembly and secured not less than 6 %
of total valid votes in those elections. In addition win at least four seats in Lok
Sabha from any State or States.
It must have won at least 2% seats in Lok Sabha from at least three different
States.
Some of the present national parties are; Congress(I), Bharatiya Janata Party,
Bahujan Samaj Party, Nationalist Congress Party, Communist Party of India, etc.

State Parties: The State parties promote regional languages, culture and
interest of people of that region. To be recognized as a State party, it must fulfill
following conditions:
In the last general elections to legislative assembly, the party candidates must
have secured not less than 6% of total valid votes and must retain at least 2
members to State Legislative Assembly.
Some of the well known State political parties are: Shiv Sena (Maharashtra),
AIADMK and DMK (Tamil Nadu), Telgu Desam (Andhra Pradesh), Rashtriya Janata
Dal (Bihar), the National Conference (Jammu and Kashmir) etc.

Party system in uttar Pradesh

There are 80 seats in loksabha from uttar
Pradesh
there 403 seats of vidhan sabha in uttar Pradesh
there are 31 seats of rajya sabha in uttar
Pradesh

List of political parties in Uttar Pradesh

This is a list of recognised political parties in Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh has
a multi-party system with a predominance of small regional parties. Parties that wish to
contest local, state or national elections are required to be registered by the Election
Commission of India (EC).

Bahujan Samaj Party[1]

BSP

1984 Mayawati

Kanshiram

Bharatiya Janata Party

BJP

1980 Rajnath Singh

Communist Party of India

CPI

1925[2]

Communist Party of India

(Marxist)
Indian National Congress

CPI
(M)
INC

Suravaram Sudhakar
Reddy

1964 Sitaram Yechury

1885 Sonia Gandhi

At state level :
SYMBOL

NAME
Rashtriya Lok Dal

Bahujan samaj party :

ACR.
RLD

YEAR
1998

CHIEF
Ajit Singh

STATES
Uttar
Pradesh

History : The party was founded on 14th April 1984 by Kanshi Ram. Due to his
deteriorating health in the 1990s, former school teacher Mayawati became the
party's leader.[6] The party's power grew quickly with seats in the Uttar Pradesh
Legislative Assembly and India's Lower House of Parliament. In 1993, following
the assembly elections, Mayawati formed a coalition with Samajwadi Party
President Mulayam Singh Yadav as Chief Minister. In mid-1995, she withdrew
support from his government, which led to a major incident where Mulayam Singh
Yadav was accused of keeping her party legislators hostage to try to break her
party. Since this, they have regarded each other publicly as chief rivals. Mayawati
then sought the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to become Chief
Minister on 3 June 1995. In October 1995 the BJP withdrew support to her and
fresh elections were called after President's Rule

Samajwadi Party
Electoral record[edit]

The Samajwadi Party primarily based in Uttar Pradesh State. It has contested Lok
Sabha and State Assembly elections around the country, though its successes have
been mainly in Uttar Pradesh. In the assembly election in Madhya Pradesh in 2003, the
Samajwadi Party gained 7 seats, making it the third largest party in the state. When its
candidate won the by-election of Lanji (Balaghat) in 2007, its total tally reached 8. In
the 2012 legislative assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh, SP registered a landslide
victory with a clear majority in the House, thus enabling it to form the Government in the
state. This was expected to be the fifth term of Mulayam Singh Yadav as Chief Minister
of state, but he surprised everyone by selecting his son, Akhilesh Yadav, to be the new
chief minister (the youngest ever). It became official on 15 March. It was also the first
time that SP was head of the UP government for a full term of 5 years. [4][5]

HISTORY
Samajwadi Party came into existence on October 4, 1992 in Lucknow under the
leadership of Shri Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav. The party gives immense importance to
the development of common man and thus adopted the vehicle of the common man a
bicycle as its symbol.
In these two decades, Samajwadi Party has come to power in Uttar Pradesh
twice (Shri Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav had been the Chief Minister once before
the party was formed) and has tried to bring development and prosperity in the
state. The party under the leadership of Shri Mulayam Signh Yadav formed the
government in Uttar Pradesh in 1993 and then again in 2003. Samajwadi Party
also enjoys the position of being the third largest party in the 15th Lok Sabha.

Samajwadi Party works at the grassroot level for social upliftment and believes in
creating a fertile ground for the downtrodden sections of society so that everyone lives in
harmony. Samajwadi Party is a mass based party and attracts membership from all
sections of society. Samajwadi Party steadfastly stands for communal harmony and
secularism as enshrined in our constitution.
The party is founded on the principle socialism, democracy and equality. Samajwadi
Party believes in communal harmony and endeavours to create special opportunities for
backward sections of society, Muslims and women. Samajwadi Party is organized at the
national, state, zila and municipal level across the country.

BJP
The Bharatiya Janata Party is today the most prominent member of the family of
organisations known as the "Sangh Parivar" and nurtured by the Rashtria Swyamsevak
Sangh (RSS). Like the RSS, the BJP is wedded to Indias unity and integrity, its intrinsic
identity and the social strength, individual character and cultural uniqueness that have
been the hallmark of this great country and its people for millennia.
History is the philosophy of nations. And the Sangh Parivar has a very clear and clear
conception of Indian history. Here was a great civilization whose influence and imprint
spread from Sri Lanka to Tibet, from Southeast Asia to Central Asia, from one end of the
Indian Ocean to the other. It weathered the storms of invaders, from the Greeks to the
Huns, from the Shakas to the Islamic armies of Turks and Afghans. It fought and resisted
external oppression and its essential civilization and culture survived great challenges
and attempts at effacement.
In more recent times this torch of nationalism and Indian identity was carried forward by
Swami Dayanand and Swami Vivekanada. And in the present century the good work has
been carried on by Sri Aurobindo, Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi and others. The RSS,
founded by Dr K.B. Hedgewar in 1925 and consolidated by Shri Guruji M.S. Golwalkar
after 1940, sees itself as the legatee of this heroic tradition. It believes in the principle of:
"Justice for all and appeasement of none". It has no doubt about Hindu identity and
culture being the mainstay of the Indian nation and of Indian society. This identity and
this culture informs all Indians, irrespective of religious or denominational faith. To the
RSS, all Indians, irrespective of religious background, notwithstanding their mode and
place of worship, are equal.

Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress ( pronunciation (helpinfo)) (INC, often called the Congress), is
one of two majorpolitical parties in India; the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. Congress is
one of the largest and oldest democratically run political parties in the world. [12][not in citation given] The
party was founded in 1885 during the British Raj; its founders include Allan Octavian Hume a
prominent member of the Theosophical Society, Dadabhai Naoroji andDinshaw Wacha. In the
late nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth centuries, Congress became a pivotal participant in
the Indian Independence Movement, with over 15 million members and over 70 million
participants in its opposition to British colonial rule in India.

After independence in 1947, Congress became India's dominant political party; as of 2015, in the
15 general elections since independence, it has won an outright majority on six occasions and
has led the ruling coalition a further four times, heading the central government for 49 years.
There have been seven Congress Prime Ministers, the first being Jawaharlal Nehru (194764),
and the most recent Manmohan Singh (200414). The party's social liberal platform is generally
considered to be on the centre-left of Indian politics.[13]
From 2004 to 2014, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, a coalition of several regional
parties, formed the Indian government and was headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In
November 2014, the party was in power in ten states and had a majority in six Arunachal
Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Manipur, Meghalaya andMizoram.
In Assam, Kerala and Uttarakhand it shared power with its alliance partners. The Congress has
previously directly ruled Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab and Goa. In the 2014 general election, the Congress had its poorest
post-independence general election performance, winning only 44 seats of the 543-member
house.
The Congress' social policy is based upon the Gandhian principle of Sarvodaya the lifting up of
all sections of society which involves the improvement of the lives of economically
underprivileged and socially marginalised people. The party primarily endorses social liberalism
seeking to balance individual liberty and social justice, and secularism asserting the right to be
free from religious rule and teachings.

History[edit]
Main article: History of Madhya Pradesh
Isolated remains of Homo erectus found in Hathnora in the Narmada Valley indicate that
Madhya Pradesh might have been inhabited in the Middle Pleistocene era.[12] Painted
pottery dated to the later mesolithic period has been found in the Bhimbetka rock
shelters.[13] Chalcolithic sites belonging to Kayatha culture (21001800 BCE) and Malwa
culture (17001500 BCE) have been discovered in the western part of the state. [14]
Madhya Pradesh was created in 1950 from the former British Central Provinces and
Berar and the princely states of Makrai and Chhattisgarh, with Nagpur as the capital of
the state. The new states of Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh, and Bhopal were formed
out of the Central India Agency. In 1956, the states of Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh,
and Bhopal were merged into Madhya Pradesh, and the Marathi-speaking southern
region Vidarbha, which included Nagpur, was ceded to Bombay state. Bhopal became
the new capital of the state. In November 2000, as part of the Madhya Pradesh
Reorganization Act, the southeastern portion of the state split off to form the new state
of Chhattisgarh.

Party system in Madhya Pradesh

There are 11 seats of rajya sabha in mp

There are 40 seats of lok sabha in mp

There are 230 seats of vidhan sabha in mp

Political Parties in Madhya Pradesh Government and Politics: The leading political parties in Madhya
Pradesh Politics are Indian National Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, Jiti Jitayi Politics, Madhya
Pradesh Kisan Mazdoor Adivasi Kranti Dal, Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress, and Pragatisheel
Bahujan Samaj Party.
Current Scenario in Madhya Pradesh Government and Politics: The current Chief Minister of Madhya
Pradesh is Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The current Governor of Madhya Pradesh is Dr. Balram Jakhar.
The present Chief Secretary is RC Sahni.
The present government is led by Shivraj Singh Chouhan, a BJP party worker. Prior to Shivraj Singh
Chouhan, Babulal Gaur and Uma Bharti from the same BJP were the chief ministers of the state. The
state was governed by Mr. Digvijay Singh of the Congress party before the last election. The two
major political parties in Madhya Pradesh are Indian National Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP).

Madhya Pradesh Kisan Mazdoor Adivasi Kranti

Dal
Madhya Pradesh Kisan Mazdoor Adivasi Kranti Dal (Madhya Pradesh Peasants
Workers Adivasi Revolution Party) is a political party in Madhya Pradesh, India.
MPKMAKD was formed as a breakaway from Communist Party of India
(Marxist) (CPI(M)) in 2001. In the 2003 Madhya Pradesh legislative assembly elections,
MPMKAKD was part of a third front, called 'Madhya Pradesh Jan Mukti Morcha'
(Madhya Pradesh People's Liberation Front). The leader of MPMKAKD is Dr. Sunilal.

Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress

Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress (Madhya Pradesh Development Congress) was
a political party in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh from 1996 to 1998. MPVC was
founded by former aviation minister Madhavrao Scindia, after that Scindia had been
refused an Indian National Congress ticket for the 1996 Lok Sabhaelections. Scindia
won a seat as an MPVC candidate as a result of hard work & strong campaign specially
led by some strong congress politician and workers who resigned from congress for 'His
Highness'.
MPVC joined the United Front.

Pragatisheel Bahujan Samaj Party

Pragatisheel Bahujan Samaj Party, splinter group of Bahujan Samaj Party in Madhya
Pradesh. PBSP was formed on October 27, 1999, when four out of eleven BSP
members of the legislative assembly of Madhya Pradesh broke away.

party system in rajasthan

there are 200 seats in vidhan sabha in rajasthan
there are 10 seats of rajya sabha in rajasthan
there are 25 seats of lok sabha in rajasthan

Politics of Rajasthan is dominated by two parties Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

and Indian National Congress. The current government in Rajasthan is that of Bharatiya
Janata Party. The Chief Minister is Vasundhara Raje.
Rajasthan's politics has mainly been dominated by the two state stalwarts,
namely, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Mohan Lal Sukhadia of the Bharatiya Janata
Party and the Indian National Congress respectively. Shri Sukhadia ruled Rajasthan for
17 years and died in February 1982 while Late Shri Shekhawat was in the national
political horizon. The earlier politics were dominated by the Congress party. The main
opposition party was the Bharatiya Jansangh, headed by Rajasthan's most popular
leader Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and the Swatantra party headed by former rulers of
Rajasthan. The Congress rule was untouched till the year 1962. But in 1967, Jansangh
headed by Shekhawat and Swatantra party headed by Rajmata Gayatri Devi of Jaipur
reached the majority point, but couldn't form a government. In 1972, the Congress won a
landslide victory following the victory in the 1971 war. But after the declaration of
emergency, Shekhawat became immensely popular, especially after he was forced to be
arrested and was sent to Rohtak Jail in Haryana. As soon as the emergency was lifted, a
joint opposition Janta Party won a thundering landslide victory winning 151 of the 200
seats. Shekhawat became the Chief Minister. The government was dismissed by Indira
Gandhi in 1980 after she restored power in Delhi. In the 1980 elections, the Janta Party
split at the centre giving the Congress a victory in Rajasthan.
Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984, and in 1985, a sympathy wave let the
Congress sail through in the elections. But in 1989, which could be called a Shekhawat
wave, the BJP-JD alliance won all 25 Lok Sabha seats and 140 of 200 seats in the

assembly. Shekhawat became the Chief Minister for the second term. Though Janta Dal
took back its support to the Shekhawat government, Shekhawat tore apart the JD and
continued to rule as the Chief Minister thus earning the title of master manipulator. After
the Babri Mosque demolition in Ayodhya, Shekhawat government was suspended by the
P.M., Narsimha Rao and President's rule was enforced in Rajasthan. Election took place
in 1993 in which his party won even after the breaking of its alliance with the Janta Dal.
But the then governor Bali Ram Bhagat didn't allow Shekhawat to form the government,
but after immense pressure from Shekhawat, who reached the majority point after
supports from independents like Sardar Gurjant Singh, Rani Narendra Kanwar, Sujan
Singh Yadav, Rohitashva Kumar Sharma, Kr. Arun Singh, Sundar Lal etc. crossed the
majority line of 101 seats in the assembly. Shekhawat became the Chief Minister for the
third term. This time he ran a successful third term. This was perhaps the diamond
phase for Rajasthan as it led to all-round development and Rajasthan also gained
identity on the globe as a rapidly developing and beautiful state.Shekhawat introduced
Heritage, Desert, Rural, Wildlife tourism to Rajasthan In 1998 elections, the BJP lost
heavily due to the onion price rise issue. Ashok Gehlot ran a 5 year government. But he
lost the Lok Sabha elections in 1999, only 6 months after its victory in the assembly
elections. Shekhawat became the Vice-President of India in 2002 so he had to leave
Rajasthan politics and the BJP. He appointed Vasundhara Raje as his successor. She
led the BJP in 2003 elections and led it to a victory. She was the Chief Minister of
Rajasthan from 2003 - 2008. Narpat Singh Rajvi was the Health Minister, Ghanshyam
Tiwari was the Food Minister, and Gulab Chand Kataria was the Home Minister. The BJP
won the 2004 Lok Sabha elections from here as well. But the tables turned in December
2008, when the infighting within the BJP, Raje's perceived autocratic and despotic rule,
and the police excesses in the Gurjar-Meena agitation combined to overcome the
incumbent Raje government's development and growth planks, and the Congress
emerged victorious with the support of some independent MLA's. Ashok Gehlot was
sworn-in as the new Chief Minister of Rajasthan. In 2013 [Bharatiya Janata Party]] won
by very large difference. BJP got 163 seats and Congress got only 21 seats out of 200
seats. Vasundhara Raje became the Chief Minister for second time
Bjp history in rajasthan

History is the philosophy of nations. And the Sangh Parivar has a very clear
and candid conception of Indian history. Here was a great civilization whose
glory spread from Sri Lanka to Java and Japan and from Tibet and Mangolia to
China and Siberia. While it weathered the storms of Huns and Shakas and
Greeks it wilted before the Islamic storms of the Turks. However, a 1000-year
resistance saw this country bloodied but unbowed. Its civilization survived

through the heroic efforts of the Vijayanagar Empire and of Shivaji, Rana
Pratap and Guru Govind Singh and countless heroes and martyrs.
In more recent times this torch was picked up by Swami Dayanand and
Swami Vivekanada. And in the present century the good work has been
carried on by Sri Aurobindo, Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi and others.
The RSS, founded by Dr Hedgewar in 1925 and consolidated by Shri Guruji
after 1940, is the heir to this heroic, historic heritage. It has nothing against
Muslim Indians - as distinguished from Muslim invaders. Its position on this
issue has all along been: "Justice for all and appeasement of none". But it has
no doubt that we were and are a Hindu nation; that change of faith cannot
mean change of nationality.

Postindependence: from dominance to decline

From 1951 until his death in 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru dominated the
Congress Party, which won overwhelming victories in the elections of
195152, 1957, and 1962. The party united in 1964 to electLal Bahadur
Shastri and in 1966 Indira Gandhi (Nehrus daughter) to the posts of party
leader and thus prime minister. In 1967, however, Indira Gandhi faced open
revolt within the party, and in 1969 she was expelled from the party by a
group called the Syndicate. Nevertheless, her New Congress Party
scored a landslide victory in the 1971 elections, and for a period it was
unclear which party was the true rightful heir of the Indian National
Congress label.
In the mid-1970s the New Congress Partys popular support began to
fracture. From 1975 Gandhis government grew increasingly more
authoritarian, and unrest among the opposition grew. In the parliamentary
elections held in March 1977, the opposition Janata Party scored a
landslide victory over the Congress Party, winning 295 seats in the Lok
Sabha (the lower chamber of Indias parliament) against 153 for the
Congress; Gandhi herself lost to her Janata opponent. On January 2, 1978,
she and her followers seceded and formed a new opposition party,
popularly called Congress (I)the I signifying Indira. Over the next year,
her new party attracted enough members of the legislature to become the
official opposition, and in 1981 the national election commission declared it

the real Indian National Congress. In 1996 the I designation was

dropped. In November 1979 Gandhi regained a parliamentary seat, and the
following year she was again elected prime minister. In 1982 her sonRajiv
Gandhi became nominal head of the party, and, upon her assassination in
October 1984, he became prime minister. In December he led the
Congress Party to an overwhelming victory in which it secured 401 seats in
the legislature.
Although the Congress Party remained the largest party in parliament in
1989, Rajiv Gandhi was unseated as prime minister by a coalition of
opposition parties. While campaigning to regain power in May 1991, he
was assassinated by a suicide bomber associated with the Tamil Tigers, a
separatist group in Sri Lanka. He was succeeded as party leader by P.V.
Narasimha Rao, who was elected prime minister in June 1991. In contrast
to the partys historical socialist policies, Rao embraced economic
liberalization. By 1996 the partys image was suffering from various reports
of corruption, and in elections that year the Congress Party was reduced to
140 seats, its lowest number in the Lok Sabha to that point, becoming
parliaments second largest party. Rao subsequently resigned as prime
minister and, in September, as party president. He was succeeded as
president by Sitaram Kesri, the partys first non-Brahman leader.
The United Front governmenta coalition of 13 partiescame to power as
a minority government with the support of the Congress Party. However, as
the largest single party in opposition in parliament after the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP; Indian Peoples Party), the Congress Party was vital in
both making and defeating the United Front. In November 1997 the
Congress Party withdrew its support from the United Front, prompting
elections in February 1998. To boost its popularity among the masses and
improve the partys performance in the forthcoming elections, the Congress
Party leaders urgedSonia Gandhithe Italian-born widow of Rajiv Gandhi
to assume the leadership of the party. She had previously declined
overtures to play an active role in party affairs, but this time she agreed to

campaign. Although a BJP-led coalition government came to power, the

Congress Party and its partners were able to deny the BJP an absolute
majority in the Lok Sabha. The partys better-than-expected performance in
the national elections was attributed by many observers to Sonia Gandhis
charisma and vigorous campaigning. After the 1998 elections, Kesri
resigned as party president, and Sonia Gandhi assumed the leadership of
the party.
National parliamentary elections were again held in 1999, when one of the
BJPs major allies, the All India Dravidian Progressive Federation (All India
Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam; AIADMK) party, withdrew its support.
Despite aggressive campaigning by the leaders of the Congress Party, the
party suffered a worse electoral performance than it had in 1996 and 1998,
winning only 114 seats. Nevertheless, in the 2004 national elections the
party scored a surprising victory and returned to power. Gandhi, however,
declined an invitation to become prime minister and instead
supported Manmohan Singh, a former finance minister, who in May 2004
became the countrys first Sikh prime minister. The party again surprised
pundits in the 2009 parliamentary elections by increasing its number of
seats in the Lok Sabha from 153 to 206, its best showing since 1991.
By the 2014 Lok Sabha polling, however, the party had lost much of its
popular support, mainly because of several years of poor economic
conditions in the country and growing discontent over a series of corruption
scandals involving government officials. Although the party touted its record
at passing legislation aimed at improving the lot of those living in poverty
and rural areas, the BJP and its candidate for prime minister, Narendra
Modi, successfully won over the electorate. The results of the elections,
announced in mid-May, were an overwhelming electoral victory for the BJP
while the Congress Party suffered a stunning loss, securing only 44 seats
in the chamber. It was the partys worst-ever performance in a national
election and threw into question if it would continue to be identified as an
officially recognized party in parliament or if its status would be reduced to

that of a recognized group. Singh left office on May 26, the day Modi was
sworn in as prime minister.

CONCLUSION
Political parties in an earlier-era were primarily consensual in nature. There used to
be a basic consensus on matters of policy and leadership. There were, of course,
factions and dissensions. Whenever the consensus broke down, either a party faced a
split or a new consensus; therefore, a new image emerged. Today the political parties
in India are coalitional rather than consensual. So it can be seen that during the last
two decades Indian parties and the party system have undergone remarkable
changes. The changes are not simply in the number of parties or their relative
strength. There has been a qualitative transformation in the manner in which each
party perceives its role in politics and in its interaction with other political parties.
Indias party system has been under flux, transformation and reconfiguration. By the
time the sun set on the twentieth century, the party system in India had developed a
plurality of national and regional levels. But this change in the party system in India
is also an echo of the helpless condition of a modern liberal democratic order.
Hopefully when cultures and forms of life would come to interact deeply with one
another and when Indians would find themselves in the cross-currents of many

cultural traditions, a new constitutive element of Indian political community would

emerge. In such a situation, the emerging scenario of the Indian party system,
segmented pluralism, would add strength to a maturing democracy.
In this assignment I have tried to take a fresh look at the characteristics of Indian
political parties and the party system during the contemporary times. I have argued
that political parties today are coalitional rather than consensual, segmental rather
than holistic, pragmatic rather than ideological. The party system is characterised as
segmental pluralism. The explanation for these changes is traceable in the radical
transformations taking place in the civil society in the way individuals and groups
perceives their roles as constitutive elements of a political community. The policy of
economic liberalisation has acted as a catalyst in accelerating these changes in
perceptions. These changes, however, are not symptomatic of an impending crisis.
One has to recognize the changes in Indias historical situation and redefine the
substantive content of her civic and political life.

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 Fadia, B.L., Indian Government and Politics, Sahitya Bhawan Publications,

1999.
Austin, G., Working a Democratic Constitution: A History of the Indian
Experience, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Bhambri, C.P., The Indian State Fifty Years, New Delhi, Shipra, 1997.
Brass, P., Politics of India since Independence, Hyderabad, Orient Longman,
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