India is a parliamentary democracy and it is not a presidential form of democracy. But the status of the President is that of the head of the State and together with both the houses of the Parliaments, the President forms the legislative mechanism.

The president is elected indirectly by the electorate college of the MPs of both the houses and the members of the state assemblies. The election of the President is therefore important. So far, the Congress party dominated this electorate college and the President have always been the candidate of the Congress. This might change this presidential election.

The BJP has already a lead in terms of the percentage of the votes. It alone has over 40 percent of the share of the total votes and the Congress is just over 14 percent. The BSP is just around 0.72 with just 19 MLAs and 6 MPs. So the next President will be the candidate nominated by the BJP. It needs just a small support from other parties for the BJP win the Presidential post.

The BJP/RSS is not leaving any stone unturned to get an absolute hold on the central government and the state governments.

Even the small state like Tripura is getting careful attention and meticulous planning by the BJP/RSS. Though it can be agreed that it has much-needed resources and the organisational network of RSS to back their electoral efforts, it has not yet come out with any important social policies.

The BJP/RSS efforts have been directed towards developments and the Hindutva politics. It is an interesting combination. The BJP/RSS are trying to revamp the system completely. Modi behaves as if he is directly elected by the people in the line of the American President. The parliamentary government where the Prime Minister is the Prime among equals is called the Modi Government.

It is not Modi Government because he is not elected President like US form of Presidential democracy. There is no scope for the dictatorial working in the Indian political system. Modi government must stop behaving like India is a presidential system of governance.

[irp]

The BJP wanted to make India free from the Congress, but now they are training their guns on the regional parties and the other national parties.

They made it clear that the regional parties must be destroyed and that there should be a regime like political system in our country. It will be a murder of democracy because the regional parties as important as the national parties and India saw federations of the regional parties coming together to counter the ill-behaving national parties.

This is indeed a debatable question, but India cannot have one party (like China), two-party (like America), but the multi-party system as India is not a quasi-federal polity.

The so-called regional parties must join hands to forge a viable federation that will counter the RSS/BJP.

The BSP has been hopeless in not playing its national role but is happily sinking into the UP state as the regional party. It has to extend its base if it has to be a meaningful political entity that will lead the social democratic movement from the front.

[irp]

In the hey-days of the BSP, Kanshiram Saheb was offered the President’s post, which he declined for the welfare of the BSP.

It is more important to make the party strong and wide, before thinking about political positions. And political positions cannot precede the party interests and that is the reason why the RSS/BJP is right on focussing on expansion and party building because this was the only route through which they became what they are today.

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist