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Vijay has rightly pointed out that India being a land of diversity, the need of the people cannot be catered with just two political parties. But there should be justification of having many different political parties. I was going through the ideologies of different political parties, and I feel that the basic ideology remains the same for almost all of the parties. Most of these political parties arose  as a result of fight for the party leadership. Such breaking away of political groups is not healthy for any nation

Regional parties have provided political stability. That is something we all would agree. But I also feel that in democracy, a prolonged stability brings a lot of problems too. The party in power for a long starts misusing it. Also they don't fear the loss in coming election as they don't have much competitions. They even resort to goonism as we have seen with TMC and Shiv Sena on various occasions. These regional parties being for long time in power bring a saturation in development too. Any party being in power brings favouritism for contractor, developer etc and so the competitive development suffers and it invites corruption too. And when you know you have no competition in future elections, you get laid back attitude for work. So political stability of a regional party does bring these drawbacks. Moreover they stay confined to regional sentiments and don't synch with national events

Regional parties are not democratic than how can they believe in democracy. Every supremo of these parties are owner of these parties. Mulayam Sing of SP, Mayawati of BSP. Thakrey of Shiv Sena and Laloo of RJD. In these parties their words are last words. No one can dare to challange them. If these parties won in their states they create problem for ruling party in center.

By the time India's political system was firmly established , it also was led to power struggle between the different parties .  Having tasted power and its advantages , The Indian National Congress was not ready to give up easily, so , Nehru brought in his daughter Indira Gandhi and began grooming her rather than a more enlightened or capable leader from within the party . This was the beginning of the dynastic rule started by the Congress party which has managed to keep the party leadership within the family until now thereby paving the way for other parties to do the same. Also , people leaving one party and joining another or forming their own parties was at its peak during the  late Nineteen seventies and eighties. A number of new parties sprung up making the already complicated political structure even more so thereby  confusing the voters .

It is unfair to accuse Nehru of grooming Indira to start dynasty. In fact he was succeeded by Shastri who unfortunately died in harness. Larger number of political parties are both a boom and also a curse. Boon because different regions can express themselves more specifically. Curse because they dilute the strength of the party at Center. What should be the ideal number will be decided ultimately by the voters as well as the specific issues from time to time.

Political party is an organization which is link between government and common man. But increase in political parties has made a great mess. If there are more number of political parties more differences in opinions will take place which will only result in conflict. Common man has to suffer due to all this commotion. Hence it better not to have many political parties.

No doubt, when there are many political parties, it becomes more democratic and voters have more options to choose their candidates. But it can also lead to splitting of votes. There was a case in one of the constituency here at Manipur. A politician, belonging to congress party who had worked hard for his constituency was expected to win in the last election. Due to some differences with him, one of his supporter decided to contest election himself from another regional party. As a result, the votes of his supporters were split between them, as a result of which candidate from another party easily won the election. So more the number of political parties, more ll the votes be split, in which case, the winner of the election might be representing the interest of very less number of individuals.

I totally agree that too many political parties spoil the game by splitting the votes. Regional parties are too confined in their agenda of governance. They are too restricted to their region. Though they represent the cultural and economic diversity of  our country, they also inhibit with working of diversity under the same roof. Diversity should be united for national interest. If it continues like this, things will not come under national interest. 

For  parties who claim to have socialism and communism as their ideology fail to actually follow the ideology. They in fact make mockery of communism and socialism. They are true opportunist in the garb of socialism and communism.

India have only two parties who have base in whole India, BJP and congress. It is not fair to oppose congress. It is fact that no one regional parties are capable in winning majority in Loksabha. Most of regional parties are cluster of nearest and dearest of Party supremo. 60 members of Mulayam Singh's family enjoying and looting UP.

 The multi -party system in India has been often linked to democracy and freedom of choice for people .But is this really so? When we look at the communal angle that our multi -party democracy has taken , it is anything but democratic or a fair unbiased political system. India, being the largest democracy in the world is also the most complex because of the multi religious population which often leads to its own set of problems. Unless we have  committed politicians and leaders at the top level  who are committed enough to make interest of the nation their priority , which has not been the case for decades after independence, the multi- party system has  been used as a a weapon and a tool to lure voters.

I also feel parties whose whole sole agenda is based on religion or rather pseudo religion or pseudo secularism should be totally discouraged by voters. They don't only hamper the democracy but also hamper the harmony in the society. They malign religious community whom they represent.

I fail to understand when we boast of unity in diversity, how can we justify the existence and growth of these parties based on religious, cultural and social differences. Does it help to unify us or does it help the opportunists to divide and rule. I feel that we have to rise above all differences for national interest

Just as Arunima has mentioned in her post, its high time for everyone to think beyond's one religion, caste and other cultural and social differences. Whenever any new political party emerges based on such difference it only widens the gap between the people. If the number of political parties are limited, people will be ready to put aside their differences for a common interest.

Political parties use every trick that they feel will get them votes. It should be understood that political parties to a very large extent reflect the state of the society. Thus same party will fight different elections on different issues. In India the Constitution is the guiding force and it is non communal, secular and guarantees fundamental rights etc. to every citizen, The judiciary also ensures that citizens are not deprived of these. Thus even if political parties seek votes on polarization basis when they come to power they have to exercise it within the limits set by the Constitution. The citizens can reject such parties that create divisiveness etc and political parties will have no option but to change their tactics.

It is impossible to restrict number of parties. It is fact that base of most of religion parties are cast not religion. It is region that these parties have not any base is whole country. When these parties won some seat of Lok Sabha that they begins bargaining to support party who is going to be make government. And these parties also threat many times to withdraw their support. It weaken democracy.

Around the world we notice that multi -party system is practiced mostly in under developed or developing countries and in some developed countries as well. But what is noteworthy in other countries is the lack of regional parties that add to the confusion. Even when there are multiple number of parties , the  state elections and national level ones are normally held together and between the very same parties unlike in India where the national parties and the regional parties are all participating together . There have been instances where the voting list runs to several pages with as many as 65 or 70 parties contesting the election. The present  government is mulling over bringing in some reforms in the election process so that the elections are held at the same time thereby making the whole election process transparent and also reducing expenditure on the tax payer.

anil wrote:

It is impossible to restrict number of parties. It is fact that base of most of religion parties are cast not religion. It is region that these parties have not any base is whole country. When these parties won some seat of Lok Sabha that they begins bargaining to support party who is going to be make government. And these parties also threat many times to withdraw their support. It weaken democracy.

It is a fact that in India caste based politics rule the roost.Candidates from a a particular caste will lure the people belonging  to his caste with high positions ranging from Panchayat level to Parliament. We have been seeing it in almost States of this Country.

For a democracy to function properly, there should be a strong ruling party which is voted by majority and a strong opposition to extend it's support to strengthen the ruling party as well as to keep a check on it. Multiple political parties in India have hampered this functioning. Several parties come together to govern and like too many cooks spoil the broth. Opposition hardly knows it's responsibility to support government. Too many political parties in opposition weaken the role of opposition in a democracy. Most of the time governance turns into mockery of democracy and a tug of war for power and votes in the next election. Limiting the number of political parties to 3_4 will help to curb this division of votes and will lead to more responsible politics and governance

The number of political parties in a country will also depend on the population size, economic distribution, number of religions and language and social divisions etc. No point in comparing with countries with small population or single religion or language.  As these differences reduce the number of political parties will also go down. 

Even though our constitution lays down the principal of being secular,  and non communal, in reality people do not follow these principles in many regions. We often read about how village headmen and religious leaders hold meetings and dictates the people to vote for a particular candidate. And often the candidate they support are simply their mouthpiece and belong to caste based political parties. Such problems are less likely to take place if the number of political parties is limited

well said Ram Babu. Indeed structure of our society is based on cast than religion. India is country of different type than other countries. Country have many religions casts and sub casts. But it is not in interest of democracy that political parties are based on religion or casts. Cast or religion base parties have not base in whole country. When they get chance be part of central government than they give prefrance to their states.