It seems that democracy in India is coming of age. One of the heartening outcomes of the last Lok Sabha elections and the recent Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana is the decimation of some regional political parties and diminution of national parties.
This new development is going to impact the federal structure of the country. At the moment there are 1,766 registered parties in India out of which six are national parties, 54 are state parties and the remaining 1,706 are unrecognised parties.
Now, three national parties the Nationalist Congress Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist Party of India are set to lose their national status. Thus, only the BJP, the INC and the CPM will remain national parties.
A registered party is recognised as a national party only if fulfils one of the three conditions: w it wins two per cent of seats in LS (11 seats) from at least three states;
w in an election to the Lok Sabha or an Assembly, it polls six per cent of votes in four states and wins four Lok Sabha seats; w it is recognised as a state party in four states.
Recent trends show that voters are now against proliferation of parties which generally happens when democracy is in a nascent stage.
In 1952, there were 14 national parties, but the Congress was predominant till 1967. It had such a dominant position that a political scientist like Rajni Kothari called it the “Congress System”.
According to him, democracy was in robust health not withstanding the fact that only one political party was dominating the politics. Some of the national parties of 1950s, like the Bolshevik Party of India, Ram Rajya Parishad and Krishikar Lok Party, don’t even exist today.
The predominance of the Congress led to centralisation of power and brazen abuse of Article 356 of the Constitution (dismissal of state governments) on spurious grounds.
Indira Gandhi dispensed with the intra-party elections in 1971 and leaders handpicked by her were foisted as CMs. The predaceous attitude of the Congress alienated states.
Seething with anger for being at the receiving end, states reacted ferociously with regional outfits emerging in most of the states and cornering a sizeable number of seats.
The federal structure which had been defaced and defiled to a great extent resurfaced aggressively. Over the years, as we have seen, regional parties became so strong that they could hold the Centre to ransom.
The Prime Minster, Dr Manmohan Singh, for example, was forced to obey the diktats of regional leaders who decided which portfolios should be given to whom. Though it restored federalism, it debilitated the Centre.
Recent elections show that people may be veering towards a few parties and may be giving shape to a bipolar system. Traditionally, Britain was ruled alternatively by the Conservatives and the Liberals.
The Labour Party is an offshoot of the Liberal Party, but now it has other parties too, like the Social Democratic Party and regional parties like the Scottish Nationalist Party which rules Scotland.
The growth of regional parties in Britain is the result of lack of autonomy and power to the provinces. The secession of Ireland in 1921 from the UK and the recent referendum in Scotland on the issue of secession from Britain speak volumes about it. Though Britain encouraged federalism in its colonies, it did not do so in its own country.
France was different, which treated it colonies as the extension of its own territory. The US has only two parties. So is the case with Canada where the Conservatives and the Liberals have been ruling alternatively though the New Democratic Party, a socialist party, has been present in Parliament for a long time.
Mature democracies do not have multiplicity of parties. In India, parties keep splitting and growing. Even the Anti-Defection Act could not check this phenomenon.
The decline in the number of national parties and states rejecting regional parties is sure to make the Centre strong. It should be hoped that the old proclivity of a strong Centre eating into the vitals of federalism is not repeated. Modi served as the CM of a state for nearly 13 years before becoming the PM. He knows the problems of states.
Some of the main objectives of federalism are participation by the people in governance and sharing of power between the Union and states. This sharing of power is ensured by shared power at the Centre and self-rule in states. It needs a mature approach and both need to respect each other’s jurisdiction.
The writer is a senior TV journalist and author
