In a democracy, the need for political parties is indispensable. In a country as diverse as India, it is only natural that there exists a multi-party system where there are a number of national as well as regional parties. A regional party may gain a majority and rule a particular state. If a party is represented in more than 4 states, it would be labelled a national party, subject to some other criteria.
In a democracy, the political system cannot exist without the party system in which the political parties across the political spectrum run for elections, and all have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in coalition. The political parties are useful for the education of electorates and electoral processes. A political party is needed for aggregation, articulation and organization of interests and offers diverse options for electorates in a democracy.
Regardless of the existence of various political parties, and regardless of which party is in power, there are times when all-party meetings are needed to further the common good. Despite ideological differences, opposing policies and divergent interests, all-party meetings are called to find common ground on matters that affect all sections of the society, be it at the national level or state level.
In Nagaland, since we have an opposition-less government, or an all-party government, every meeting is an all-party meeting minus the unrepresented parties. It is observed that the government of the day must, if the situation so warrants, call for all-party meetings inclusive of those without elected representatives in the assembly.
However, the point that this column would like to drive home is that such all-party meetings should be encouraged at the grassroots level or at least at the assembly constituency level. In a closely knit society like ours, the need for such meetings become even more relevant.
All political parties claim to work for the uplift and welfare of the people and, therefore, all of them must at some point get together and share opinions on issues of mutual interest. Now is an ideal time to experiment such meetings because all, or at least most, of the political parties are partners in the ruling government.
Electoral politics is not about violence, money and other illicit practices and, therefore, there should be no room for animosity, hostility and antagonism between the political parties in a given assembly constituency.
Here, it is felt that all-party meetings can help build partnership among the political parties in the common pursuit of development, progress and welfare of the constituency. It can also lend much needed support to the ongoing clean election campaigns and change the (mis)perception of political parties that has been ingrained among the party workers as well as the voters.
