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Inner Party Democracy

2022 OCT 5

Mains   > Polity   >   Election   >   Electoral reforms

IN NEWS:

  • The Congress is set for elections for the post of party president. This has revived the debate on whether internal elections should be mandated for all political parties.

POLITICAL PARTIES IN INDIA:

  • Political parties in India are extra-constitutional, but they are the breathing air of the political system.
  • Section 29A (5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (RPA) is the only major statutory provision dealing with political parties in India.
  • The Election Commission registers political parties for the purpose of elections and grants them recognition as national or state parties on the basis of their poll performance. The other parties are simply declared as registered-unrecognised parties.

INNER PARTY DEMOCRACY:

  • There are no explicit provisions in the Indian Constitution that lays down guidelines for regulating the conduct of the political parties in India.
  • Only Section 29 (A) of the RPA, 1951 mandates the registration of political parties. It states that political parties are required to inform the ECI about changes in their office-bearers and addresses.
  • However, the courts have made an observation that nothing in Article 324 of the Constitution, or Section 29(A) of the RPA, 1951 tells that the ECI can actually regulate internal structures, organisations or elections of the party.
  • The ECI expects political parties to abide by their constitution and does not question the result or the procedure the parties followed. As a result, hardly any information about internal elections is provided to the Election Commission by the parties.

OUTCOMES OF POOR INTRA PARTY DEMOCRACY:

  • Dynasty politics:
    • The absence of intra-party democracy has contributed to political parties becoming family-controlled and dynastic politics being a norm.
    • With senior party leaders fielding their sons, daughters and nephews in the elections, “family” constituencies have emerged.
  • Growing nepotism:
    • Dynasty politics dictate the ticket distribution process in elections. As a result, many of the MPs, especially those below the age of 35, are from political families.
  • Selection of poor electoral representatives:
    • Centralised and ambiguous working of the parties has resulted in lack of transparency in the selection process of candidates. Hence, irrespective of their ability or experience, the favourite of the party leader gets promoted over the deserving leaders.
  • Fragmentation within parties:
    • Discontent over nepotism and lack of upward mobility within the parties have resulted in the formation of factions within a party as well as frequent defections. This has had serious consequences in the steady functioning of parliamentary democracy in the country.
  • Criminalization of politics:
    • Tickets are given to candidates on the vague concept of winnability and a multi-party competitive election process demand large amounts of financial resources. This paves the way for candidates with money and muscle power to enter into the political arena.
    • Eg: According to the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), out of the 539 winners analyzed in Lok Sabha 2019, 233 (or 43%) MPs have declared criminal cases against themselves.
  • Alienation of youth from politics:
    • Internal elections are key for upward mobility. Its absence, along with other factors like recurring cases of corruption are alienating the youth from politics.
  • Male dominated:
    • Although almost all parties have attempted to build women organizations to secure their support, patriarchal system dominates the larger party structures. Hence, the proportion of women in politics remain low.
  • Lack of accountability:
    • Political parties are aggregations of interests. Leadership polls offers the contestants to present a critical evaluation of their own party’s policies and suggest solutions and alternatives. Absence of this forum results in party policies remaining unaccountable.

SOLUTIONS:

  • The 170th report of the Law Commission of India (1999):
    • The 170th report on reform of electoral laws, dedicated an entire chapter on the necessity of providing laws relating to internal democracy within parties.
    • It strongly recommended the introduction of a regulatory framework for governing the internal structures and inner party democracy of the political parties.
    • This was to be done by inserting a new part, Part II-A, entitled ‘Organisation of Political Parties and matters incidental thereto’ in the RPA, 1951.
  • Draft Political Parties (Registration and Regulation of Affairs) Act, 2011:
    • The draft envisaged the creation of an Executive Committee for every political party whose members would be elected by the members of the local committees of the state units of the party. The latter, in turn, would elect the office-bearers of the party from amongst themselves, without accepting any nomination.
  • Revise anti defection law:
    • The anti-defection legislation requires the elected representatives to strictly follow the party whip during legislative voting. It restricts legislators from voting in line with his conscience, judgement and interests of their electorate and makes them mere numbers on paper.
    • A solution to this is to make the law valid only for those votes that determine the stability of the government, like passage of the annual budget or no-confidence motions.
  • Several government-constituted committees like the Dinesh Goswami Committee, the Tarkunde Committee and Indrajit Gupta Committee have also strongly argued for more transparent working of the political parties in the country.

CONCLUSION:

A political party which does not respect democratic principles in its internal working cannot be expected to respect those principles in the governance of the country. Hence, it is imperative that political parties open their eyes to growing calls for electoral political reforms and take steps towards bringing in intra-party democracy.

PRACTICE QUESTION:

Q. If democracy and accountability constitute the core of our constitutional system, the same concepts must also apply to the functioning of political parties which are integral to parliamentary democracy. Discuss.