Coming to the realities, this time round, the
national elections are besiegedbesides the known challenges
of caste system and regionalismwith a new challenge:
Can India be any longer ruled from the House of Parliament?
There was a time, encouragingly, right at the very first
elections to the Parliament of the independent India, when
at least one party used to contest for the Parliament from
all over the geography of the country. It was then, of course,
a different cribbinga cribbing about the absence of a second
Pan-India party.
There was, however, a hope then: as India matures as a democracy, bi-party
system shall emerge. This, however, remained a mere wishful thinking except for a ray of
hope when the Bharatiya Janata Party came on the national scene, claiming to be a Pan India party. At least that is what the experiences of the last decade make us believe:
the fragile coalition that enabled the earlier BJP-led 23-party NDA government and
the recent Congress-led 14-party UPA government at the Center did not inspire confidence, for the
powerful regional powers always succeeded in bending the
so-called national parties to yield to their regional demands even
at the cost of national priorities.
|
