Party system

Another Election, another hung Parliament,is this what we want....

With the General Elections in India approaching, a question that may arise in every Indian's mind is what type of party system do we require??? A two party system or the multi party system, that is there in India at present. We can all remember the phase 1996-99, when we were forced to three General Elections. This is a waste of tax-payers money. In spite of using it for development purpose, it has to be used for meeting election expenses. This amounts to crores of rupees. And this time it is estimated the money that is to be spent will be more than the money spent in America's Presidential elections. Anybody can imagine now the amount. And who can give the assurance that again there won't be hung Parliament. Ultimately its the common man who suffers due to the rise in prices caused by elections.

Now, if we get into the implications of two party & multi party system in case of India then we will find that both have their pros & cons. A two party system brings more stability to to the government. Government can take tough decisions for the welfare of the people. It also don't have to look after its allies for the support. But India being a diverse country(one of its kind in the whole world), with two party system all the sections and communities of people may not get proper representation. Some sections may not get proper forum to express their views.

Whereas a multi party system leads to instability. There may not be a single party that gets a clear cut majority as we often see this happening in our country. A government can't complete its full term. But here anybody willing to form a party & contest elections can do that. All the regions, communities & ideologies have their party. People have more choices to vote.

This debate has been continuing and will continue as and when there will be a problem of hung parliament or assembly. Our policy makers need to discuss it at the appropriate level so that some solution may crop up.

One way we can do that is allowing only the National parties to contest General Elections and not state elections whereas state elections to be contested by regional parties and they can't contest General Elections. In this way number of parties in the election fray will decrease.