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Previous Tenure Congress led United Progressive Alliance ruled the country four five years and now has once again returned to power. If we consider its performance; its performance in the first four years was very satisfactory but the last year turned out to very challenging. Many weaknesses of the alliance government had surfaced. Where left parties had taken their support back from the UPA government on the issue of Indo-US nuclear deal, Manmohan Singh succeeded in saving the government from its premature fall with the support of Malayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party and in clinching the deal. During the same time, economic depression, unpredictable fall in the share market, terrorist attacks and serial bomb blasts increased government’s problems. Manmohan government acted very intelligently on the issue of terrorism while the opposition parties were trying to use it as a poll plank in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

Problems From the present scenario it has become clear that the government will have to face more problems as compared to its previous tenure. Though Congress has returned to power as the strongest party with more than 200 MPs but it is still dependent on the regional parties for the survival of the coalition government. So Congress will have to take ‘extra care’ of the demands of its coalition partners. It had become clear prior to the formation of the government when one of its main allies DMK decided to stay out of the government and give its outsider support to the government. It must be learnt that DMK was an ally in UPA government’s previous tenure. The reason of DMK’s decision was it that they were not being given the cabinet seats according to their choice and expected numbers.

Changing Scenario Successive coalition government have proved that regional parties have started to play an important role in the formation of the central government and this trend is not a positive sign for the progress of the nation and the poor people. Practically it has been proved that small parties try to grab maxim power on the time of formation of such kind of coalition governments. When their individual interests are ignored they create problems for the government by taking their support back. Thus   they torpedo the international achievements of the government. For the two decades we have noticed that national level parties are becoming weaker while the regional parties have become stronger. The irony is it that every leader of every regional party has started to dream of becoming the PM of the country.

National and International Interests If we consider carefully it become clear that the national level parties are responsible for the present situation because they did not challenged the region and caste based politics of these regional parties. It became evident when north Indians were targeted by the MSN in Maharashtra. Though regional parties have become able enough to play an important role in the government formation at the central level but they have kept ‘unity of the nation’ at bay. There are various regional parties that grab the votes by using regional issues as poll planks. They always think about their local level issues. They never care about the national and international level issues while the central government takes comprehensive decisions on the basis of internal and external challenges. There is no doubt that in some parts of the country regional parties are stronger that the national level parties and in such cases national level parties become dependent on the small parties to make their position strong. Regional parties take the benefit of this situation. They demand more and more seats to fight elections and big parties are becoming weaker because of this problem.

Solution In some parts of the nation voters don’t have any alternative national level option and in this condition they have to vote for the regional party. These regional parties fight in the Lok Sabha elections on the basis of regional, caste and community based issues which are a big danger for the unity of the country. This problem can be solved only when all the alliances are formed prior to the elections and all the alliance partners issue their single election manifesto. Election Commission can play an important role in it. Though India is one of the biggest democracy but many weaknesses have started to affect it adversely. Sometimes those parties become the leader of the people who have not even got 20 per cent of votes. Such kind of leaders can never be believed as no one is sure that to which alliance they will support after the elections. This downfall can be stopped only if all the political parties take an active interest and act upon the EC guidelines and do not fight the elections on the issues of region, caste and community. It this practice won’t be ceased Indian democracy will fail to address the issues of all the people of the country.