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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.

Looking at the pros and cons of the multi- party system, the most obvious advantage is giving the freedom to choose a party that comes close to your political leanings since there would be far more choices. When a nation has only two or three party system, citizens are stuck between the two or three parties whether one likes their ideologies or not. These factors themselves may prove to be disadvantageous to both the systems - In a two or three party system unless the political party is people friendly , chances are that they may easily be thrown out by the voters and since there are not many choices it may lead to autocratic rule or dictatorship. In a multi- party system even the ones that are not really working towards the interest of the nation may survive because they are bound to have their own supporters .

Having more parties gives us more options to choose from. As a voter of this Democratic country, I have felt that I never was overwhelmed by the multiple choices that I had to choose from but I have been definitely underwhelmed by the lack of quality of choices left to choose from. So I always felt the scarcity among plenty.

I always felt that many political parties are grooming grounds for anti social and anti national activities. Fewer parties might help to acknowledge that as they can be constantly checked and boycotted.

India is not only an emerging economy but also an emerging nation. We are still to develop a single pan India identity which overrides our caste, religion, regional etc. identities. Till such time there will continue to exist larger number of parties.  It is a part of our evolution. Decades from now the number of parties will surely go down and it will be healthy.

Another reason why I feel that the multiparty system serves no purpose is the fact that many politicians indulge in party hopping. When we look at the career graphs of the politicians, we find that only few have remained faithful to his or her party. A potential candidate when he is not given party ticket to contest election has no qualms about changing his/her party which only goes to prove that they do not follow any particular ideologies.

Multi parties system in politics is unavoidable in India. There is no alternative of this system. The only thing required is to regulate these parties properly. Alliance among the parties must be before election. After election it must be prohibited. If any party withdraw support than member of this party have not right of voting in house till the next election. This system may be impose some restriction on barganing and blackmailing.

India is a nation of excesses and that being the case everything here is exaggerated. Our lives are filled with noise and chaos, our films are loud with exaggerated emotions and we are surrounded day in and day out by every kind of pollution possible. In such an atmosphere where  there is no subtlety , how can we expect our political parties to perform without drama and blackmail ? which they all indulge in. With so many parties we are constantly bombarded by propaganda which goes on all the time since it is election time somewhere or the other. Except for a rare few , none of our parties stick to their election promises nor work towards the betterment of the nation as has been seen in all these past years. Candidates change parties to suit their own personal ambitions and one can see zero ethics .

Having said that , personally I feel that multiparty system is still a better option since it is much more people friendly , although it is exactly not democratic in the Indian context since many parties have come up solely because of their clever manipulation of either minority or caste issue. If we could have stricter laws and guidelines about the formation of parties and up the criteria that need to be met with , like minimum education levels and candidates with no criminal backgrounds and this to be followed strictly and followed on a regular yearly basis, it could possibly streamline the process  to a great extent, also discourage greedy political parties manipulating the larger parties even when they manage to win a single seat. It is understood that there is no word like never in Indian politics so one can only hope !!!

 I feel that there should be legal regulations around the formation of political parties. Morality and ethics are not there with maximum politicians in today's time. Other than having a minimum education qualification and no criminal background, I also feel that there should be a hierarchical structure too. You can get into party at entry level and slowly get promoted, something that happens with any other career. You can not be paradropped to a powerful position just by kin and kith policy. This will streamline the functionality of a party in a democracy and will also inspire youths to take politics as a clean hardworking career. I think that's a dream too ideal for our chaotic country.

Multiple parties are OK as long as we can count the number may be max 5

The aspirations of the people get translated through political parties. In a huge populated country like ours it is natural to expect diverse aspirations also having huge supporters and thus multiple parties are in existence, It is going to be like this for many years till convergence to unified goals at national level takes place. The political churning is necessary before a stable two or three party system emerges.

As other members have mentioned streamlining of the political system is absolutely necessary. Even though multiparty system is suppose to caters to the need and aspirations of diverse sections of the society, as of now the existing political system does not serve that purpose. Instead it is leading to more bargaining of power and instability. Making it difficult for those with criminal background and also for those who changes the party frequently and especially right before the elections might curb the problems associated with multiparty system.

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