The Big Story: Party hats

What is a national party? The Election Commission revisited the question in the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) (Amendment) Order, 2016, in a notification published on Monday. The order, which applies from January 1, 2014, said that the status of a national party would be reviewed every 10 years instead of every five, that it would not be left to the vagaries of a single election. It diminishes the importance of electoral success in the idea of national relevance. In effect, it means that parties that fared badly in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 get to keep their symbols: the Communist Party of India (Marxist) its hammer and sickle, the Bahujan Samaj Party its elephant, the Nationalist Congress Party its analogue clock.

Under the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968, a party qualifies for national status if it fulfils any one of four conditions: it has returned candidates from at least four states to the Lok Sabha in the last general elections, polling not less than 6% of the votes in each of those states; is recognised as a state party in at least four states; has cornered at least 2% of the Lok Sabha seats in the last general elections. The 2014 general elections had reduced the number of parties that met this criteria to three, namely, the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the CPI(M). The fortunes of the CPI(M) dwindled further after it lost successive state elections. Meanwhile, the BJP won a massive majority in 2014, has opened its account in new states and formed government in Assam as well as Jammu and Kashmir, steadily wiping other parties off the map.

If a party's immediate electoral success does not decide its relevance then what does? If few people want it in government then what determines its national significance? Perhaps it lies in the ideas that a party brings to the political life of a country. The national mainstream would be the poorer without, say, whether the Bahujan Samaj Party's assertion of Dalit rights or the CPI(M)'s stress on secularism. Elections are a game of numbers, the Election Commission's order seems to say, a product of immediate circumstances and campaign frenzy. The real contest of ideas in a democracy lasts longer.

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Anita Katyal reports that the CPI(M), Congress and BSP all get to keep their symbols.

Political pickings

1. While opposition leaders from Kashmir met the prime minister on Monday, Home Minister Rajnath Singh has reportedly held two rounds of Track II talks with "eminent citizens", mostly non-Kashmiri Muslims, to find a solution to the new phase of unrest in the Valley.

2. On Monday, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj landed in Myanmar, where leaders assured her that the country's territory would not be used as base for militant outfits targeting India.

3. Ten National Disaster Response Force teams have been rushed to flood hit Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

4. The Congress and the BJP have reportedly refused to divulge their source of funds.

Punditry

1. In the Indian Express, Ashutosh Varshney on how cow protection threatens the BJP's own projectof Hindu unity.

2. In the Hindu, Pulapre Blakrishnan asks the new Reserve Bank of India governor, Urjit Patel, to reconsider the central bank's anti-inflationary policy.

3. In the Telegraph, Prabhat Patnaik on how the likes of Donald Trump touch a chord when circumstances help.

Giggles

Don't Miss...

Anita Katyal takes a hard look at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his national ambitions:

The decision to invite chief ministers and leaders from across the political spectrum for his swearing-in ceremony was the first indication that Kumar was trying to position himself as the rallying point for the formation of a national anti-BJP front. On the guest list for the grand event were chief ministers Mamata Banerjee from Kolkata, Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi and Akhilesh Yadav of Uttar Pradesh. Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav as well as former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Yadav, among other political heavyweights.