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.