The burgeoning number of political parties is an issue which should rightly concern all of us . Of all functioning democracies and India being the largest, it also faces the largest threat on this account. It is doubtless necessary for a vibrant democracy to have political parties to champion the causes of people but in India the number of parties which are in existence at this point of time is simply mind-boggling. The number of political parties both at the national and regional levels has registered an unprecedented growth. And exercises at electoral reforms so far have failed to dampen the ebullient spirits of our political leaders in forming parties. The regional outfits have outshone the national parties in this regard.
A majority of these regional parties are formed with an ideological veneer by a person who is clever enough to give it a regional content of an emotional character which helps tremendously in arousing mass emotion and by riding piggyback on it he sets out to achieve his personal agenda and thereby establishing his own fief. He fiefdom consists of his family and a band of hangers-on who swear by their loyalty to him .In return when he succeeds in a big way his followers are duly rewarded with ministerial berths and other offices. Existence of such parties in the Hindi heart-belt is too common a phenomenon to deserve particular mention. In a scenario when the results of an assembly election is tight, the regional parties suddenly grow in larger than life importance and greatly succeed in driving a hard bargain at the cost of the people.
In the South the picture is no different. In Tamil Nadu the establishment of a particular family's rule is almost complete. Perhaps it would be appropriate to recall the events during the formation of the second UPA Government when DMK chief was ridiculously trying to gift the nation a few members as ministers in Dr. Manmohan Singh's cabinet!
West Bengal which at the vanguard of the Leftist movement in the country has so-called left parties in innumberable avatars just to champion the cause of the poor! It defies all logic to explain why these parties are in such great numbers if the ideological moorings are the same!