Role of 'Independents' in Indian Elections

written by: Khyati Srivastava   (khyati.khush@gmail.com)

 

India! The world’s youngest democracy and being 2^nd most populous nation after China, happens to be world’s largest democracy too. The Indian democracy is though youngest, but still considered as the most mature democracy. The preamble to the Indian constitution says “WE THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVERIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC…” These 5-features rendered India is unique identity in the world politics. To put in other words, these are the 5-mantras that empowers each and every Indian to be free & equal. Here no-one is a ruler, but everyone is. 

 Every five years we have elections, where people elect their representatives, who will run the Nation for coming five-years. Most important to note here is that any Indian citizen can stand for elections. Yes! Anybody. Each and every Indian has the right to stand for elections and dream to have power in the hand.

India is a multi-party nation which has also emerged to an extent because of this freedom in our constitution. Still ever since elections in India started there have been a considerable number of people not from any party contesting elections. They are called ‘Independents’.

The points to notice here are:

• Ever since 1952 elections the quest for power has increased many-folds. The number of independents claiming their potentials to share power has increased tremendously. It was merely 533 out of 1874 in 1952 and in 2014 it was 3234 out of 8251, which is almost near to half.

• If the trends are observed more vividly, one can notice the multi-fold rise in 1980, and continued after that till 1996, when it increased with leaps-and-bounds. However, it shrunk highly after 1996. But again increased slightly from 2004 and has risen with almost similar pace till 2014.

• This makes it clear that whenever there is political instability, number of independents contesting rise.  Does this relate to opportunism in politics?!

Note:1990s was the era of the birth of several small regional parties. Many existing small parties also started gaining momentum. Everyone was in a race for power. This was the time when number of independents showed sharp rise from 5546 in 1991-92 election to 10635 in 1996 elections.

• However, the interesting fact to observe is that their actual share in power has gone down very badly. When in 1952 out of 533, 37 got elected, in 2014 this figure is merely 3 that too out of 3234.
• The graph above clearly shows that though number of independents in election battle field has sharply risen, but their winnability has fallen even more.

• In the multi party system country like India, role of Independents in politics very much like ends with no-poles. However, in a representative democratic nation like India, their role cannot be put to question altogether. After all, they are equally responsible for the people of the constituency who elected them, as the prime minister/leader of opposition are to the people who elected them. Just because they belong to a majority ruling party or opposition party and the independent comes from none, doesn’t gives a valid reason to question their interests. However, such representation should be checked when they nurture opportunism in politics.

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