Read the passage and answer the questions below :

Party politics in India has confronted numerous challenges. Not only has the Congress system destroyed itself, but the fragmentation of the Congress coalition has triggered a new emphasis on self-representation which raises questions about the pary system and its capacity to accommodate diverse interests.....An important test facing the polity is to evolve a party system or political parties that can effectively articulate and aggregate a variety of interests. —Zoya Hasan

(a) Write a short note on what the author calls challenges of the party system in the light of what you have read in this chapter.

(b) Give an example from this chapter of the lack of accommodation and aggrigation mentioned in this passage.

(c) Why is it necessary for parties to accommodate and aggregate variety of interests ?

(i) Dominance of Congress till 1989.

(ii) Era of coalitions or multi-party system.

(iii) Emergence of powerful parties to represent the Dalits and Other Backward Classes (OBC).

(iv) Role of regional parties in national politics.

(v) Coalitions on the basis of power sharing arrangement rather than on ideological base.

(b) The party system in India lacks capacity to accommodate diverse interests. There was a time when the Congress accomodated diverse groups and ideologies. It represented India’s diversity in terms of classes and castes, religions and languages and various interests. Now with the end of Congress dominance, different parties have come up.

(c) It is necessary for parties to accommodate and aggregate variety of interests for the success of democracy. People will remain divided on the basis of caste, religion and region. This will create differences among the political parties. The parties will get more opportunist and form governments on power-sharing basis rather than on the basis of ideology as it being done now.