Indian politics is a jamboree of councils and assemblies, of
multiple parties both national and regional, of politicians young, middle aged and
even nonagerian (90 year olds). It can get overwhelming for a newbie to
understand how the Parliament works, how the elections are conducted and how
the Governments are formed or even brought down. The game of power is rather
intriguing and while there may not be as much bloodshed in the name of politics
as in the medieval age, but there are definitely enough Machiavellis to be wary
of.
In light of the recent Cabinet expansions announced by our
Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, let me take you through a beginner’s journey
into the Frenzy called Indian Politics. Fasten your seat belts because this ride
could be kind of turbulent!
How it all began in
India…
Once upon a time a country called India became independent
and decided to move ahead with a constitution that believed in socialism.
Remember, then we used to be rather friendly with USSR (Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics) and we wanted to follow their style of economic system.
Well that country doesn’t exist anymore – it split into 15 countries, ummm..not
all are friendly with us. And along the way we gradually abandoned socialism and
adopted an American baby called Capitalism. So is this politics? No, not
really. But our economic system defines the manifesto of the various political
parties that battle it out during elections (National or State), so it is
important.
Anyway the country’s journey continues rather
simplistically. It decides to adopt everything that is British, the democratic
system, the bicameral legislature, the election commission, and while they have
a rubber stamp Queen, we have one in our president. How convenient!
Our Parliamentary
system
So let’s talk about our Parliament and how it functions. The
Parliament of India is the supreme legislative body and has two houses for its
legislative members. The Upper House or the Council of States is called the
Rajya Sabha, and the Lower House or House of the People is called Lok Sabha.
There are 543 members in the Lok Sabha, all of whom are directly elected by the
citizens of our country. Soon NRIs will also be able to vote from their
respective new countries of residence. The Rajya Sabha on the other hand has
strength of 245 members only and can expand to only 250. 233 members have to be
selected from States and Union Territories (based on their population strength),
and 12 are nominated by the President from the expertise of different fields of
science, culture, art and history.
At the State level, there are 7 states, namely Jammu and
Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh which have bicameral legislature. These states are the most populous
ones and hence have an Upper House called Vidhan Parishad and a lower House
called Vidhan Sabha. The remaining States and UTs have unicameral legislature,
i.e. there’s only the Vidhan Sabha.
Elections are held separately for the Central government and
the different State and UT governments. Although, now there are talks of
cutting costs and preventing loss of man hours by holding elections across all
SUTs and the center simultaneously.
Now that I have confused you thoroughly, my suggestion is go
ahead and find out how many seats does BJP have in the Lok Sabha, in the Rajya
Sabha and how many states is it present in and has formed the state government.
Not such a tall task, go ahead and plunge into the depth of craziness!
For more details about our political system, keep watching
this space.
-Ms. Monica Mor
Sr. Faculty, INLEAD
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