Write a letter to the editor of an English newspaper highlighting the increasing role of money and muscle power in Indian political parties.
Answers
Answer:
While money plays a key role in most elections across the world, the particular reliance of Indian parties on candidates with great personal wealth is quite a unique phenomenon.
In many longstanding democracies, campaign funding is highly regulated, a lion’s share of the funding comes from the party itself or third-party sources like lobbyists and corporate actors, and the personal wealth of the candidate is less important. But why are Indian parties increasingly dependent upon such wealthy candidates?
To answer this question, one needs to understand how candidates are selected and the policymaking role of legislators in India’s political system.
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India’s parties display very low “intra-party democracy” because party’s policy decisions are routinely made by a small coterie of party elites. More importantly, party tickets are typically distributed—or even sold—by these elites in the absence of a functioning democratic process within the party.