Political Parties in India

In this article, we have mentioned the political parties in India.

Political Party: A group or organisation which has an ideology and all the members of that group share the same ideology or political views.

Classification of Political Parties:

Reactionary Parties
Conservative Parties
Liberal Parties
Radical Parties

1.Ractionary Parties: These cling to old socio economic and political institutions.

2.Conservative Parties: These believe in status quo.

3.Liberal Parties: These are interested in reforming the existing institutions and conditions with the current time requirement.

4.Radical Parties: These parties don’t believe in the existing institutions. They want to replace them and establish new.

Leftist, Centriet and Righties ideological parties:

Rightist: Radical and Conservative parties (eg. BJP)

Centrist: Liberal Parties (eg. INC)

Leftist; Radical Parties (eg. CPI , CPM)

Party system in India

Following are the features of Party System in India:

Multi Party System
One Dominant Party System
Lack of Clear Ideology
Personality Cult
Based on Traditional Factors
Emergence of Regional Parties
Faction and Defections
Lack of Effective Opposition\

Recognition of Parties

Political parties are recognised under different categories based on their poll performance in the past. The recognition is given by the Election Commission. The classification is as follows:

National Party
State Party
Registered – unrecognised party

A political party in India enjoys some benefits when it is registered as a recognised party i.e. national or state party. Few of them are:

Symbol Allottment – National party has a reserved symbol all over the country while state party has reservation of symbol in the state. Unrecognised parties have to choose from the available symbols.
Star Campaigner – Recognised parties can choose 40 star campaigners while unrecognised parties have a limit of 20 only. The travel expenses of star campaigners are not considered in the election expenses.
Proposers – Recognised party candidate needs only one proposer while filing nomination for the election.

There are few conditions which define the recognition of a political party. Below given are these conditions for national and state parties.

Conditions for recognition as a National Party

If the party is registered as a state party in atleast 4 states.
If it wins 2% of Lok Sabha seats in the general election. (i.e. 11 seats) & these seats are obtained from minimum of 3 states.
If it gets 6% of Valid Votes for the election to the lok sabha or vidhan Sabha in atleast 4 states + it wins 4 seats to lok sabha from a state/ states.

Conditions for recognition as a State Party

If the party gets 6% of valid votes in vidhan sabha elections. In Addition, it gets 2 seats in the vidhan sabha.
If it gets 6% of valid votes in lok sabha elctions. In addition, it gets 1 seat in the lok sabha.
If it gets 3% of seats in the vidhan sabha OR 3 seats in vidhan sabha, whichever is more.
If it gets 1/25th of the seats allotted to that state for the lok sabha elections. (eg. if state has 50 lok sabha seats, the party has to win 2 seats i.e. 1/25th).
It it gets 8% of valid votes in lok sabha or vidhan sabha elections. (added in 2011)

Facts to remember

Political Parties in India:

There are 8 National parties as of now. It is important to remeber the year of formation of these states and symbol.

Indian National Party- 1885 (Hand)
CPI- 1925 (Ears of corn and sickle)
CPI (M)- 1964 (Hammer, sickle and star)
BJP- 1980 (lotus)
BSP- 1984 (Elephant)
All india Trinmul Congress- 1998 (Flowers and grass)
Nationalist Congress Party- 1999 (Clock)
National People’s Party – 2013 (Book)