(A) Modern democracies cannot exist without political parties. We can understand the necessity of political parties by imagining a situation without parties.
Every candidate in the elections will be independent. So no one will be able to make any promises to the people about any major policy changes.
The government may be formed, but its utility will remain ever uncertain. Elected representatives will be accountable to their constituency for what they do in the locality. But no one will be responsible for how the country will be run.
By looking at the non-party based elections to the panchayat in many states. Although the parties do not contest formally, it is generally noticed that the village gets split into more than one faction, each of which puts up a ‘panel’ of its candidates. This is exactly what the party does. That is the reason we find political parties in almost all countries of the world, whether these countries are big or small, old or new, developed or developing.
The rise of political parties is directly linked to the emergence of representative democracies. As societies became large and complex, they also needed some agency to gather different views on various issues and to present these to the government and to bring various representatives together so that a responsible government could be formed. They needed a mechanism to support or restrain the government, make policies, justify or oppose them.
Political parties fulfil these needs that every representative government has. We can say that parties are a necessary condition for a democracy.
(B) One sees several parties compete for power, and when more than two parties have a reasonable chance of coming to power either on their own strength or in alliance with others, we call it a multiparty system. Thus in India, we have a multiparty system.
In this system, the government is formed by various parties coming together in a coalition.
When several parties in a multi-party system join hands for the purpose of contesting elections and winning power, it is called an alliance or a front. For example, in India there were three such major alliances in 2004 parliamentary elections– the National Democratic Alliance, the United Progressive Alliance and the Left Front.
The multiparty system often appears very messy and leads to political instability. At the same time, this system allows a variety of interests and opinions to enjoy political representation.
India has evolved a multiparty system because the social and geographical diversity in such a large country is not easily absorbed by two or even three parties. No system is ideal for all countries and all situations.