Too many political parties in Our country feels like a drawback for the simple reason of confusion.People like us donot understand the pros and cons of every party. Some parties influence people by giving them gifts/money and seldom services to the people! Many parties turn the state to a monarchy kind of ruling rather than a democratic kind of ruling!

I am against multiple political parties. The only benefit that I see is more options to choose from.... and even that turns out to be a drawback. We see a new party being launched every now and then. Many are launched for power hunger and unsatisfied personal interests but shown as ideology difference. We get the same old wine in the new bottle. Moreover regional parties are restricted to a region and are not in connect with the national interest. 

It also kills the democracy. They divide the votes.. we have seen in past how coalition government has been formed. The latest example being of Bihar. The single majority party was BJP. So the government formed might not be the one elected by majority. Coalition government dupe a voter, compromise on ethics and ideology to form a government. And undoubtedly in a coalition government too many cooks spoil the broth.Same holds for parties in opposition. Too many of them make filth and interfere with smooth functioning of a government

In my opinion, there should be three or four political parties to keep the democracy in the right shape as a single political party has more possibility to start monopoly and end democracy forever. The feeling of competitiveness among political parties benefit us as they try to do something good for the society even though, it does not match our expectations. A single political party might not do as much as a party does to stay in competition.

I think we can find out about parties through newspapers, although, knowing everything about a political party is not easy whether, there is one or many political parties in democracy. When we don't know everything what is happening in our neighbor's life then expecting to know very much more about a political party is very difficult.

The more options and variety that is developing in society is important to improve the quality. For example, earlier, there were very less options for products or services so we had to pick the product or service that the seller is giving without the guarantee of good quality. Now-a-days, there are many sellers and service providers, so we can choose the product or service with better quality than the rest of them.

Many political parties in the society does not give us the best quality of performance that we are expecting but the party, which we choose on the basis of performance is better than the rest of them. We pick the better option among all the options. A little bit of competition is healthy for our society as all the parties will strive to perform better than the other ones(opposition parties). 

Although, I think it will not benefit all of us if many political parties are in our society.

If we analyse the Indian political system thoroughly, we find that it is nothing but a coming together of like -minded opportunists rather than like- minded ideologists . After Independence once a democratic government was decided upon there began a rush to form different political identities since Indian National Congress  and Communist party were the only two parties in existence during the pre- independence era. So post- Independence era saw a huge spurt of regional and national parties . Equations began to change with people shifting from one to the other depending on where they benefited the most, some may have done so because of ideological preferences !

Number of parties is not an important question. It is important that what is structure of parties. At present India have only two national party BJP and congress. BJP have democracy with in party but congress is PVT. limited company. Other all parties which are state level parties are also one man parties. These is no democracy in these parties. These parties by hook or crook won some MP seats and begins to bargain with largest parties. These type of parties are harmful for country. They charges cost of their support. 

I feel that the number of political parties should be restricted to 3-4 at the most. When there are too many political parties, each parties are more busy in power grabbing and forming alliances. And in the process, they often compromise with their ideology. Moreover, a Government can never function freely if it consist of alliances formed by many parties.

India's large population and cultural diversity may not be served adequately if there were to be say only two political parties. The economic diversity is such that one or two ideologies cannot meet their aspirations. The trend of states having regional parties is going to grow and there will thus be many political parties. The requirement is that they should be wedded to the noble cause of converting India into a strong nation by working in tandem.

I agree that there should be only 3-4 parties in the country for democracy to work in real sense. 

Now the latest drama in the launch of party, leaving it and joining the so far termed dushman party is the episode of Siddhu in Punjab.

If we allow parties to flourish in the basis of cultural and economical diversity, we are in a way promoting diversities to be misused as vote banks. After 7 decades of Independence, one has to rise above playing vote bank politics and minority card and think for national interest. 

Moreover I am also against splitting and launching a new party just before election. It confuses the voters as they have no credentials of new party's work. This also impacts the parent party causing doubt about it's functioning. And many a times as Usha said is like minded opportunists coming together

 Apparently more than 150 political parties were formed soon after Independence although most of them withered away pretty soon because there was no proper structure nor any firm commitment . It was just the initial enthusiasm soon after independence which did not last long. However, a few parties stuck on like the Indian National Congress, Communist Party of India , Praja Socialist party and All India Bharatiya Jana Sangh and few parties that were dominant at the state level like The Forward block ( Marxist) , Janata, Ganatantra Parishad, Peoples Democratic front, Revolutionary Socialist Party and so on..This was in 1957 and later years saw a shifting of power within these parties . So we see that India began its independent political journey with multiple political parties.

It is beneficial to have more political parties as it allows a democratic expression of the diversity prevalent in Indian society.The political stabiliy inTN, Orissa, Bengal etc is due to strong regional parties. Diference of opinion with a national party should not be seen negatively and it is a challenge for both to resolve. It is true democracy in action.