As per the latest updated list of political parties in India, the numbers show more than 1140. Upto my knowledge only 38 parties have representatives in the current LokSabha and a few more parties have representatives in few state Assemblies. What is the use of the remaining 900+ political parties who own an office, a few party members and letter pads alone?
In the list I have come accross around 130+ parties for 2 states alone( Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu). This excludes National Parties INC,BJP,BHS,SP,RJD,CPI,CPM etc., And to my surprise, of these 140 parties( dont know exact count), hardly 15-20 parties have representatives in both the states taken together. Of the 294 member AP assembly, INC,TDP,TRS,PRP,BJP,CPI,CPM,Lok Satta,AIMIM have thier presence and DMK,AIADMK,INC,PMK,MDMK,Purathchi Bharatham,DMDK,Muslim League,VC has thier presence in TN assembly. What are the other parties doing? How much vote share they have in the constituencies they contested all over these 2 states.How many of these registered parties are regularly contesting in the elections?
As per the guidelines of ECI, A Political party can be registered if it has 100 supporters and legal advisor,chartered accountant , an office and few other requirements. Is this enough for getting registered as a political party?
Lets See some basic stats of the parties contested in AP Assembly elections 2004.
S.No | PARTY | Seats Contested | Seats Won | FD | Votes polled | Votes % | Votes % in seats contested
1 . BJP 27 2 4 942008 2.63% 29.72%
2 . BSP 160 1 159 440719 1.23% 2.21%
3 . CPI 12 6 0 545867 1.53% 36.86%
4 . CPM 14 9 3 656721 1.84% 34.74%
5 . INC 234 185 8 13793461 38.56% 49.10%
6 . TDP 267 47 3 13444168 37.59% 41.24%
7 . CPI(ML)(L) 11 0 10 66997 0.19% 5.27%
8 . INPT 1 0 1 1192 0.00% 1.05%
9 . JD(S) 5 0 5 3864 0.01% 0.64%
10 . MUL 2 0 2 5371 0.02% 1.04%
11 . RJD 8 0 8 2725 0.01% 0.33%
12 . SP 19 1 18 95416 0.27% 4.10%
13 . ABJS 4 0 4 3792 0.01% 0.55%
14 . AIMIM 7 4 2 375165 1.05% 42.48%
15 . ANC 5 0 5 6573 0.02% 1.18%
16 . BCUF 7 0 7 3652 0.01% 0.41%
17 . BJRP 9 0 9 10576 0.03% 0.90%
18 . BRP 1 0 1 542 0.00% 0.37%
19 . BSP(A) 1 0 1 2339 0.01% 1.81%
20 . IJP 2 0 2 1361 0.00% 0.34%
21 . JP 37 2 30 306347 0.86% 6.71%
22 . LJNSP 4 0 4 21550 0.06% 3.71%
23 . MBT 7 0 5 70285 0.20% 7.73%
24 . MCPI(S) 15 0 15 22181 0.06% 0.97%
25 . MRS 5 0 5 10606 0.03% 1.64%
26 . NTRTDP(LP) 18 0 18 857 0.02% 0.37%
27 . PP 8 0 8 4439 0.01% 0.46%
28 . PPOI 65 0 65 115187 0.32% 1.38%
29 . PRBP 1 0 1 1515 0.00% 1.09%
30 . RPC(S) 1 0 1 1037 0.00% 1.33%
31 . RPI 3 0 3 1523 0.00% 0.44%
32 . RPI(A) 1 0 1 956 0.00% 1.06%
33 . RPI(KH) 5 0 5 6031 0.02% 0.90%
34 . SJP(R) 1 0 1 1991 0.01% 2.05%
35 . TCP 1 0 0 52161 0.15% 38.34%
36 . TGPP 2 0 2 1083 0.00% 0.63%
37 . TRS 54 26 17 2390940 6.68% 33.89%
INDEPENDENTS
38 . IND 872 11 837 2349436 6.57% 7.31%
Grand Total : 1896 294 1270 35767634
From the above data gathered from the Election Commission of India’s official website, it is very clear that of the 37 parties contested very few are making an impact in the election results. The independent candidates who won were rebels of big parties in the state and after winning they joined back thier parent party. ECI should make the rules so stronger that a candidate should not be allowed to join any party post elections and if its done, it should be mandatory to resign their MLA /MP post. If rules are made stringent, the candidates would prefer to support thier parent party( those who win as Independents) from outside and wont be official party members during thier term.
Only 10 parties were able to make thier presence in the assembly of the 37 parties contested in elections. What is the use of remaining 27 parties which have contested in elections without any impact? All together they have secured 4,20,386 votes of the total polled 35767634 votes ( 1.18% in total). Is there any impact created by these parties all together?
If these 27 parties had been into 2 alliances of 13 and 14 parties respectively and have gained the same no of votes ( few of these parties had made alliances with other parties of these 27 but not as a bigger group), their impact would have been to some extent and atleast they would be able to change the winner of few constituencies, which might have awakened the major parties of those constituencies, but it didnt happen so.
In 2009 general elections , both PRP and Lok Satta which contested in more than 230 constituencies all over the state induvidually had been able to gain 18 and 1 seats respectively and a vote share of 16 and 5 percent respectively of the total no of votes polled in the state. If it had been calculated for the seats they contested it would be increasing to 18 and 8 respectively( approx) which created a good impact and in most of the constituences the winner’s margin is lesser than the votes secured by Lok Satta.
The reason behind PRP’s success is the film star image of its leader Chiranjeevi and his fans all over the state supporting to the party to major extent. He has been given the image of a third alternative to the state apart from the ruling INC and opposition TDP.
Whereas the case of Lok Satta is bit different. The party was formed from the NGO Lok Satta founded by a former IAS , Jai Prakash Narayan. The manifesto is very clear from the day the party had been formed. They contested in local body elections for MPP & ZPP candidatures before contesting the general elections. The party is being built up from the grass root level. This had yeilded them a reasonable share of votes and been able to create a little impact to the candidates of the major parties of the state by grabbing good number of votes in all the constituencies.
ECI should formulate rules stringently and should amend few things and re-evaluvate the existence of registered parties every year and cancel the registration if the parties are not meeting the criteria.
The basic criteria should be any of these:
- Should have atleast 500 permanent registered members
- Should reperesent any political bodies. Atleast few ward members in any part of the country should be from the party.
- The party should contest in all the elections happening in the state/country.
If any of these criteria is not met, the party’s registration should be cancelled by the ECI. If this happens, the no of parties which are just letter pad parties wont exist any more in the country.
Have to wait and see when this will happen in India..
JaiHind.