Parties, Pressure Groups, the Media and the Representation of the People Acts

A political party is an organised group that seeks to win power through elections and to hold it. That is what separates it from a pressure group, which seeks to influence decisions and does not usually stand for office. The Constitution protects the right to form associations under Article 19(1)(c), and parties exist under that right. Their formal legal status comes from the Representation of the People Act, 1951, whose Section 29A requires a party to be registered with the Election Commission before it can take part in elections as a party. Registration gives the party a name and, if the Commission recognises it, a reserved symbol. The functions go wider than elections: parties aggregate interests into programmes, recruit and train leaders, divide a legislature into government and opposition, and mobilise citizens between polls.

The party system is the pattern in which parties compete, and it is different from the list of parties. Rajni Kothari’s 1964 essay described the decades after independence as a "Congress system": the Congress held power at the Centre and in most States, and absorbed much of the opposition into itself, so that opposition was carried on inside the dominant party as well as outside it. That pattern broke up from the late 1960s. Non-Congress governments formed in several States after the 1967 elections, and the Congress split in 1969. The 1977 election produced the first non-Congress government at the Centre, formed by the Janata Party. From 1989 to 2009 no single party won a Lok Sabha majority, and the Centre was governed by coalitions. The 2014 result was the first single-party majority since 1984, and the 2024 result, as of 2024, produced a coalition government again.

Regional parties grew from the 1960s and 1970s and now govern many States, some alone and some in coalition. Examples with their founding years include the DMK (1949), the Shiv Sena (1966), the Telugu Desam Party (1982), the Bahujan Samaj Party (1984), the Samajwadi Party (1992) and the Trinamool Congress (1998). Their weight at the Centre is greatest when no party has a majority of its own, because a national alliance may depend on their seats. Supporters argue that regional parties give voice to regional and linguistic identities, check the pull of the Centre in a federal system, and bring local leaders into national decisions. Critics argue that they can bargain for patronage rather than policy, that some are built around one leader or family, and that they can narrow the national agenda. Both arguments have evidence behind them, and an answer should show which one a given case supports.

Coalitions come in two forms. A pre-poll alliance contests together on a common platform. A post-poll coalition is formed after the count, usually around a common minimum programme that lists the points of agreement and leaves the rest open. The anti-defection law in the Tenth Schedule (polity chapters 6, 13 and 15) binds members to their party’s direction in a legislature. That gives a coalition’s leader a tool to hold partners together, and gives the partners a reason to bargain hard before any vote. The debate is over what this does to governance. Supporters point to stability, a wider base, and the need to bring varied regions and groups into government. Critics point to policy paralysis, to the leverage a small partner can hold over the whole government, and to the way a coalition can set aside the programme on which it was elected.

Two questions about how parties work recur. The first is internal democracy. No general law requires a party to hold internal elections or to publish its accounts in full, and the Commission’s power over a party rests mainly on registration and symbols. Supporters of this position argue that a party is a voluntary association whose internal life belongs to its members, protected by Article 19(1)(c). Critics argue that without internal elections leadership passes by succession and loyalty, and that the voter has no check on who controls the candidate list.

The second is funding. Parties must report contributions above a threshold to the Commission under Section 29C of the 1951 Act, and they receive tax treatment on conditions set by the Income-tax Act. Electoral bonds, introduced in 2017 as a way of giving donations through a bank instrument, were struck down by the Supreme Court on 15 February 2024 in Association for Democratic Reforms v Union of India. The Court held that donor anonymity violated the voter’s right to information under Article 19(1)(a). Supporters of the scheme had argued that it moved donations from cash to banking channels and protected donors from retribution. Critics had argued that anonymity let large donors buy influence without voters knowing. A recurring proposal is partial State funding of elections, which the Indrajit Gupta Committee examined in 1998, and which has not been adopted in general form. Its supporters argue that it reduces dependence on private donors. Its critics argue that public money would flow mainly to parties that already hold seats.

A pressure group, or interest group, is an organised body that tries to influence public policy, usually without seeking office. Associations are its organised form, and in practice they come in two kinds. Formal associations are registered and have written rules: trade unions under the Trade Unions Act, 1926; societies under the Societies Registration Act, 1860; charitable and other trusts; and non-profit companies under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. Informal associations have no registration and often no written rules: caste and community associations, kinship and village networks, neighbourhood committees, and collectives of informal workers. The political scientists Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell classified interest groups as associational (trade unions, business chambers, professional bodies), institutional (bureaucracies, legislative committees and service associations acting as groups of their own) and non-associational (kinship, religious, ethnic and regional networks that act politically without an organisation built for that purpose).

Groups use several channels, often at once. They lobby ministers and officials directly. They make submissions on draft legislation and before parliamentary standing committees, which invite memoranda from outside witnesses. They go to court: public interest litigation developed in the late 1970s, with Hussainara Khatoon (1979) as an early landmark, allows a person or group to bring a case for people who cannot easily approach the court themselves, under Article 32 or Article 226. They use the Right to Information Act, 2005 to obtain the records on which a demand rests. They campaign in the media, protest, strike or call a bandh, and mobilise voters or support candidates at elections. The choice of channel says something about access. Groups that litigate often have less access to the executive, and groups that protest often have been unable to secure a hearing.

Civil society is the wider space between the State, the market and the family. It includes NGOs, voluntary organisations, religious and community bodies, professional and research institutions, and much of the organised media. Its work falls into four kinds: delivering services (schools, health camps, relief); advocacy (campaigns for a law or a standard); watchdog work (social audits, court petitions, documentation of abuses); and building capacity in communities (self-help groups, local planning committees). The regulation of its money is the most contested part. The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 requires organisations that receive foreign money to register, and to use it only for approved purposes. It was amended in 2020 to tighten those rules further. Supporters argue that the Act guards against foreign interference and secures accountability for funds. Critics argue that it has been applied in ways that constrain organisations which criticise government, and that its compliance burden falls hardest on small groups.

A social movement is a sustained, collective challenge that works largely outside the parties and the formal committee system, through mobilisation, protest, litigation and the media. Several movements have become law, and each shows a route from a demand to a statute:

• Chipko (from 1973). Villagers in the Himalayan foothills embraced trees to stop their felling, and the protest made forest policy in the hills a public question.
• Narmada Bachao Andolan (from the 1980s). A movement against dam construction and displacement on the Narmada. It contested the costs and benefits of large dams in the courts and before the public, and the debate over large projects that it began continues.
• Right to Information (1990s to 2005). A campaign in rural Rajasthan for access to the records of public works became a national movement, and fed into the Right to Information Act, 2005.
• Right to Food (from 2001). A petition filed in the Supreme Court in 2001, and the campaign around it, were followed by the National Food Security Act, 2013.
• Anti-corruption agitation (2011). A sustained agitation for an independent anti-corruption ombudsman was followed by the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013.
• Farmers’ protests (2020–21). Protests against three farm laws. The government said the laws would open agricultural markets; the protesters said they would weaken minimum support prices and regulated markets. The laws were repealed in 2021.

Almond’s functional account of politics separates interest articulation, which states a demand, from interest aggregation, which combines demands into a programme. Parties have traditionally done the aggregation, and movements often do the articulation that parties leave undone. Most movements follow the same sequence: a problem is framed in a way the public recognises; the issue is mobilised through protest and the media; it gains access to an institution, a committee, a court or an election; and it reaches policy when a political opening appears. Few movements complete the sequence, and those that do usually do so through an institution, not through the street alone.

Public opinion is the spread of views that citizens hold on public questions. It is formed in families, schools, religious and community institutions, peer groups and, increasingly, the media. It is measured by surveys, polls and elections, and it works on policy through votes, protest, petitions and pressure on representatives. Its place in a democracy rests on the principle that governments should answer to what citizens think. The media have three main roles in that process. They inform, telling people what has happened and what is proposed. They set the agenda, shaping what people think about even when they are not told what to think; agenda-setting research, which dates from the early 1970s, is the basis for this claim. And they hold power to account by reporting on it. They also form a forum in which views meet. Each role has a cost. The same reach that informs can polarise, misinform or amplify the loudest voices, and concentrated ownership or dependence on advertising can narrow what is reported.

Freedom of the press is not written as a separate right in the Constitution. The Supreme Court has read it into Article 19(1)(a), the freedom of speech and expression, beginning with Romesh Thapar (1950), which struck down an order banning a journal’s circulation, and Brij Bhushan (1950), which struck down a pre-censorship order. It continued with Sakal Papers (1962), which struck down an order that limited the number of pages and fixed the price of newspapers, and with Indian Express Newspapers (1985), which struck down a special tax on newsprint. The freedom is subject to the restrictions in Article 19(2). These name the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, contempt of court, defamation, incitement to an offence, and, added by the Sixteenth Amendment in 1963, the sovereignty and integrity of India. A restriction must be reasonable, and the Supreme Court has held that vague grounds fail that test.

Digital media have a separate and more recent set of rules. The Information Technology Act, 2000 lets the government block online content in the interests of the State and public order (Section 69A), and gives intermediaries such as platforms a conditional protection from liability for third-party content (Section 79). In Shreya Singhal v Union of India (2015) the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A, which made offensive online messages punishable, as vague and chilling to lawful speech. It also read down Section 79, so that a platform must act on a court order or a government direction, not merely on a complaint. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 added a multi-tier grievance mechanism for platforms, a code of ethics for digital news and streaming content, and obligations on large messaging and social media services to identify, in certain cases, the first originator of a message. Supporters argue that the rules bring platforms to account and give users redress. Critics argue that the oversight and content powers given to government chill speech and weaken privacy, and parts of the rules have been challenged in court. A 2023 amendment that created a government fact-check unit has also been challenged, and its status is contested.

Two models of regulation are contested. Self-regulation, which the print press and most broadcasters largely use, is said to protect editorial independence and keep government out of newsrooms. Its critics answer that bodies without binding sanctions cannot enforce standards, and that their rulings come too late to matter. Statutory regulation, with a regulator that has enforceable penalties, is said to give consistent standards and a remedy the public can use. Its critics answer that the body which decides what is false, offensive or harmful would be the government or its appointees, and that the threat alone changes what journalists publish. Many democracies use a mix: a self-regulatory body, backed by a statute that sets the outer limits. For India the question is less whether there should be regulation than which body applies which standard, and on what appeal.

During elections the rules narrow and tighten. Section 126 of the 1951 Act bars public meetings, processions and the display of election matter on television and similar media in the 48 hours that end when polling closes. Section 126A bars the conduct and publication of exit polls from the start of polling in the first phase until half an hour after polling closes in the last phase. The Commission’s guidelines treat undisclosed paid news, coverage that is bought and presented as editorial, as election expenditure that must be recorded, and the Commission regulates opinion polls and political advertising through its own directions. The reasoning is that a voter should not be moved in the final hours by material that was paid for and that the public cannot check.

The Constitution sets the framework of elections in Part XV (Articles 324 to 329) and gives Parliament power to make the detailed law under Articles 327 and 328. Parliament used that power in two Acts. The Representation of the People Act, 1950 deals with the making of the electoral rolls: who may be registered, where, and how the roll is kept current. The Representation of the People Act, 1951 deals with everything after registration: who may stand and who is disqualified, how an election is conducted, what counts as a corrupt practice, what a candidate may spend and must account for, and how an election is challenged. Delimitation of constituencies is separate, governed by the Delimitation Acts and carried out by commissions. The constitutional architecture of elections is in polity chapter 13, and this chapter does not repeat it.

The registration design rests on three ideas: a voter belongs to one place, the roll must be current, and eligibility must be checkable. The ordinary residence test ties a voter to a constituency, which makes the roll checkable by local officers and makes the representative answerable to people who live where they vote. The cost is that a migrant worker, a student or a family that moves often may be on the wrong roll or on none. Proposals for remote voting for migrants have been debated for years and have not been implemented on a national scale. Since 2021 the law has provided four qualifying dates in a year, on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October, so that a person who turns 18 can register without waiting for one annual date. The same amendment made linking an identity number to the roll voluntary. The procedure runs on three forms: Form 6 for new registration, Form 7 for deletion, and Form 8 for correction and change of address.

The conduct design rests on two controls. The Commission supervises the whole machinery under Article 324, and the Act fixes the steps from the notice of election to the declaration of the result. The Model Code of Conduct is not a statute but a set of norms the Commission issues and enforces, governing the conduct of parties and governments between the announcement and the result; polity chapter 13 has the detail. Nomination is designed to be open but checkable. Any qualified citizen on the roll may stand, but must file a sworn affidavit and face scrutiny, and a false statement in that affidavit is an offence under the Act. The deposit is a filter against frivolous candidacies, forfeited where a candidate polls less than one-sixth of the valid votes.

The disqualification design asks whether a legislator should be removed by a rule that applies automatically, or by a decision taken after a hearing. The 1951 Act mostly takes the first route. A conviction for a listed offence, with a sentence of two years or more, disqualifies from the date of conviction. In Lily Thomas v Union of India (2013) the Supreme Court struck down the provision that let a convicted member keep his seat while he appealed. Defection is a different system. Under the Tenth Schedule the presiding officer decides, subject to judicial review, and the rules are explained in polity chapters 6 and 13. The table above sets out the grounds; the detail is cross-referenced here, not repeated.

The expenses design rests on one idea: a level field in which money cannot decide the contest on its own, and in which spending can be audited. Four parts work together.

1. The ceiling. The rules under the Act fix the most a candidate may spend. It is set separately for Lok Sabha and Assembly seats and varies with the size of the constituency and the State. The Commission notifies the current figures and revises them from time to time, so the current figure should be checked rather than memorised.
2. The account. Every candidate, or an election agent, keeps a separate and correct account of all expenditure from the date of nomination to the declaration of the result (Section 77), and lodges it with the district election officer within thirty days of the result (Section 78).
3. The monitoring. The Commission appoints expenditure observers and sets up flying squads, static surveillance teams, video teams and expenditure monitoring cells, so that spending is tracked during the campaign and not only audited afterwards.
4. The consequence. Spending beyond the ceiling is a corrupt practice, which can void an election on petition. Failing to lodge the account disqualifies the candidate for three years (Section 10A).

Three debates surround the expense rules. Supporters argue that a ceiling, even a porous one, keeps the contest from becoming a contest of wealth, and that the account makes money visible. Critics argue that the ceiling is set well below what a serious campaign costs, so that much spending is declared under other headings or made through the party. They add that party spending is recorded under different rules from a candidate’s own, which leaves room for money to reach a candidate without passing through the candidate’s account, and that monitoring acts on what is visible at the time. A third debate is whether public funding would reduce the pressure toward private money. That is the question the 1998 committee on State funding addressed.