President APJ Abdul Kalam has rightly shown his preference for two party system in the largest democracy like India. Multi party system though treated as plus point of democracy but in our country unfortunately it has become a cancerous disease. All big national parties have broken into several small pieces. Every individual with little popularity in small segment of the country likes to form his own party. As a result at state as also national level numerous parties put their candidates in election and give rise to multi-cornered contest in every constituency. Due to this an individual with 10 to 20 percent of votes polled or with support of even 5 percent of total electorate manage victory in his favour. In such position voters more often than not feel cheated and mostly person of no repute is elected. This is because majority of voters casted their precious votes against the winner. It is only due to split of vote into several segments that a person of little popularity and even criminal record gets victory in election. Such multi-cornered contest makes mockery of democracy. To add fuel to fire even victorious candidates do not work for entire constituency but devotes his most of the available energy to please his own group or caste of voters who helped him win the election. It is not very much abnormal or undesirable too because after all each candidates treats the election as a profession and he is bound to make strategy to win the election by hook or crook and then earn through this business and save enough money for future election. The more he invests in his election business the more is his possibility of retaining the seat in the next election. Election is not a simple democratic process but it is an opportunity to get franchisee of a reputed brand of a product. AS such irregularity and deficiency of democracy become visible in each constituency. There are very few constituencies where a real performer is elected through our prevalent election process. When we make a sum total of such results at state or national level we find that numerous small parties and individual groups win the election and give rise to coalition government. Each individual and each small group becomes ambitious to join the coalition group which can afford formation of government. This results in compromise with theories and principles. Individual indulges in blackmailing and tries to sale his victory at price as high as possible depending upon the circumstances. He forgets his all promises made before voters before election. His main target is to become minister or even Chief Minister. We have example of Madhu Koda with no reputation in the state becoming Chief Minister in Jharkhand. We have seen how Mr. Chandra Sekhar became Prime Minister of the country. We have seen government falling in few months only because MLA/MP switching over to another group for his own vested interest at the cost of votes who gave him victory. Similarly each small parties indulges in large scale bargaining or you may say wholesale business of sale and purchase of MLAs/MPs. Such parties try to join the coalition group which can form the government and give opportunity to earn more and more money by becoming minister or head of an organization or a hot cake institute. All policies, promises and agenda of the party are sacrificed, ignored and forgotten when they come to power. Their main aim becomes to earn and accumulate more and more money for their family and for next election. Obviously multi -cornered contest and multiparty system in election process has become a curse for democracy. Therefore there must be serious and devoted debate on this issue and we must try to opt for two party system. To start with I would like to suggest that all individual who get less than 5 percent of total voters in a constituency must not be allowed to fight in next election at least for ten years. Indivual who get less than 10 to 15 percent of votes polled should be prohibited from filing nomination in the next election. Existing MLA/MP who go for second election and cannot afford votes less than 30 to 40 percent of votes polled must be punished because due to his negligible performance voters of that area suffered. Similarly all small parties who get less than 10 percent of seats must be shown the door and registration of such party must be cancelled. To fill the gap candidates of bigger party in that particular constituency be given chance and declared winner. This will definitely result in minimizing the number of parties and ultimately give rise to two party system. The biggest drawback of multi party system or coalition government visible now in the country is that parties indulges in trading of its members and consequently voters feel mostly defrauded. I therefore strongly support Mr. Kalam that we should try to minimize parties and move towards two party system without strangulating the norms and principles of democracy.
