Functions of political parties, and parties vs pressure groups

Detail

What a political party is and why its functions matter

• A political party is a group of people who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government. They agree on some policies and programmes for society.
• Class 10 NCERT lists seven functions of political parties. Functions are the jobs a party does in a democracy. Two of them work inside the legislature: making laws and acting as the opposition. Two work inside the executive: forming governments and giving access to welfare. The rest work in society: contesting elections, putting forward policies and shaping opinion.
• The ruling party is the party (or alliance of parties) that wins enough seats to form and run the government. Every party that is not in government sits in the opposition.

Function 1 — Contest elections

• In most democracies, elections are fought mainly between candidates put up by parties.
• How candidates are chosen differs:
• USA: members and supporters of a party choose its candidates in a primary election (an election held inside a party, before the main election, to pick the party's candidate). This practice is now spreading to other countries.

• India: the top party leaders choose the candidates. Ordinary members have little say.

• Many candidates for each seat: In an Indian election there are often dozens of candidates for one seat. Most belong to parties.

• Independents: A person who belongs to no party can also contest. Such a person is called an independent candidate.

Function 2 — Put forward policies and programmes

• Society holds millions of different opinions. Parties bring "a vast multitude of opinions into a few basic positions". The voter then picks one of these positions.
• A government usually follows the policies of the ruling party.
• An election manifesto is the document a party publishes before an election. It lists the party's promises and the programme it will follow if it wins.
• Rules for manifestos: Part VIII of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The MCC is a set of rules for parties and candidates during elections, issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
• 2013: The Supreme Court told the ECI to frame rules for manifestos, in S. Subramaniam Balaji v. State of Tamil Nadu (2013). The ECI added these rules to the MCC for the 2014 general elections [5].
• The Court's reasoning: Promises in a manifesto are not a "corrupt practice" under Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Even so, freebies of any kind clearly influence voters [4][5].
• What Part VIII requires:
  • A manifesto must not contain anything against the ideals and principles of the Constitution.
  • It must follow the letter and spirit of the rest of the MCC [4].
  • It should explain the rationale (the reason) for each promise and broadly show how it will be funded. This is meant to support transparency, a level playing field and believable promises [4].
  • Parties should ask for votes only on promises they can actually keep [4].

• Part VIII appeared in the ECI's updated MCC instructions up to July 2015 [5].

• Classroom link: Class 9 NCERT's "Let's Map" activity asks students to compare the manifestos of different parties on six areas: education, security, welfare, environment, economy and health.

Function 3 — Make laws

• Laws are debated and passed in the legislature. Most members of the legislature belong to a party.
• Members vote as the party leadership tells them, whatever their own views are.
• This discipline is the root of the whip. A whip is a party's formal order to its legislators on how to vote in the House.
• Under the Tenth Schedule (the anti-defection law, added by the 52nd Amendment, 1985, and tightened by the 91st Amendment, 2003), a member who votes against the party whip, or does not vote, can lose their seat. The party can save the member by forgiving the act within 15 days (paragraph 2(1)(b)). Details are in the anti-defection section.

Function 4 — Form and run governments

• The ruling party forms the executive and runs the government.
• Parties recruit leaders, train them and then make them ministers. Ministers carry out policy in the way the party wants.

Function 5 — Act as the opposition

• Opposition: the parties that lost the election.
• What the opposition does:
• It gives different views on government policy.
• It criticises the government for its failures and wrong policies.

• It mobilises dissent, meaning it organises people who disagree with the government.

• Leader of Opposition (LoP): legal anchor. The Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977 gives the post a legal basis.

• Definition: the LoP is the member who leads the largest opposition party in that House. The Speaker (Lok Sabha) or the Chairman (Rajya Sabha) must recognise them [2].
• Tie rule: sometimes two or more opposition parties have the same number of seats. The Speaker or Chairman then recognises one of their leaders, "having regard to the status of the parties". This decision is "final and conclusive" [2].

• A related law: the Leaders and Chief Whips of Recognised Parties and Groups in Parliament (Facilities) Act, 1999 [3].

• The 10% convention: By convention (a practice, not a written law), the largest opposition party needs at least 10% of the House's seats. In the Lok Sabha that means 55 of 543 seats.

• 2014–24: No opposition party reached 10%, so the Lok Sabha had no LoP for 10 years.
• 2024: Rahul Gandhi (Congress) was recognised as LoP of the 18th Lok Sabha, with effect from 9 June 2024 [6][7]. The results of the 2024 Lok Sabha election were declared on 4 June 2024 [7].

Function 6 — Shape public opinion

• Parties raise and highlight issues.
• They have lakhs of members and activists across the country, so they can launch movements about problems people face.
• Many pressure groups are extensions of political parties.
• People's views often form along the lines that parties set.

Function 7 — Give access to government machinery and welfare

• For an ordinary citizen, a local party leader is easier to reach than a government officer.
• The leader may not be fully trusted, but they still feel close to the people.
• Why this keeps parties responsive:
• Parties must listen to people's demands.
• If they do not, voters can reject them at the next election.

Photo exercise (Class 10): sorting the functions

Photo	Main function shown
BJP Mahila Morcha protests against onion and LPG price rises in Visakhapatnam	Acting as the opposition, mobilising dissent and shaping public opinion
A minister gives cheques to families of hooch (illegal liquor) victims	Running the government and giving access to welfare
A joint CPI(M)–CPI–OGP–JD(S) rally in Bhubaneswar against POSCO's iron-ore exports	Shaping public opinion and launching movements

• The exercise shows that one action can serve more than one function.

Parties vs pressure groups

• Pressure group: an organisation that tries to influence government policy. It does not try to win power itself.
• Key differences:

Basis	Political parties	Pressure groups
Aim	Win state power by contesting elections	Influence policy without contesting elections
Interests	Aggregate (combine) broad interests of many groups	Articulate (speak for) narrower interests of one section
Answer to	Voters	Their own members
Example	Congress, BJP, CPI(M)	Trade unions, farmers' and business associations

• Where the two overlap:
• Party-linked trade unions (party wings):
  • INTUC is linked to the Congress.
  • CITU is linked to the CPI(M).
  • AITUC is linked to the CPI.
• Movements that become parties: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) grew out of the 2011 anti-corruption movement.

• Pressure groups that act like party wings: Many pressure groups are formed or led by party leaders, as noted under Function 6.

• Types of pressure groups and the methods they use are covered in civil-society-pressure-groups.

Prelims Hooks

• Primary election: In the USA, party members and supporters choose the candidate. In India, top party leaders choose candidates. There is no legal primary system in India.
• Manifesto rules: MCC Part VIII was added after S. Subramaniam Balaji v. State of Tamil Nadu (2013). It first applied in the 2014 general elections. Manifestos must give the rationale for promises and the ways to fund them [4][5].
• Trap: Under the Supreme Court's 2013 reasoning, manifesto promises are not a "corrupt practice" under Section 123 of the RP Act, 1951 [5].
• Trap: The MCC is not a law passed by Parliament. It is a set of ECI guidelines.
• LoP: Defined in the Salary and Allowances of Leaders of Opposition in Parliament Act, 1977. The Speaker or Chairman recognises the LoP, and that decision is "final and conclusive" [2].
• The 10% rule comes from convention, not from the 1977 Act. Result: no Lok Sabha LoP from 2014 to 2024. Rahul Gandhi has been LoP since 9 June 2024 [6].
• Match the trade union to its party: INTUC–Congress; CITU–CPI(M); AITUC–CPI.
• Movement turned party: AAP, from the 2011 anti-corruption movement.
• Parties aggregate interests; pressure groups articulate interests. Parties answer to voters; pressure groups answer to their members.

Mains Points

• Inner-party democracy: Indian parties pick candidates through top leaders, while the USA uses primaries. This concentrates power in a few hands and weakens the "contest elections" function. Possible reform: internal elections or primaries for choosing candidates.
• Freebies vs welfare: MCC Part VIII asks parties to show why they make each promise and how they will fund it. This improves voters' information and protects state finances. But it is only a guideline that cannot be enforced in court, and the Supreme Court accepts that manifesto promises are not a corrupt practice [4][5].
• A weak opposition: The 10% convention left the Lok Sabha without an LoP from 2014 to 2024. This weakened the opposition's job of holding the government to account. The 1977 Act only requires the "largest" opposition party, which supports recognising an LoP whatever the party's size [2].
• The whip and Function 3: Strict whips under the Tenth Schedule bring stable governments. The cost is that individual legislators cannot freely debate or vote on their conscience. One middle path is to limit whips to confidence motions and money bills.