P olitical party is a group of people who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government.. We need political parties because they perform various functions:
-Parties contest elections.....
-They put forward different policies and programmes nd the voters choose from them.....
-They play an important role in making laws for the country....
-They form and run governments.....
-The parties that lose in the elections play a role of opposition to those in power by voicing different views and criticizing the government for its failures.....
-Parties shape public opinion.....
-They provide people access to government machinery and welfare schemes implemented by the govt.....
CHALLENGES:
Lack of internal democracy - ordinary members do not get sufficient information about what is going on in the party.The leadersassume greater power and tend to rule the party......
Dynastic succession - generally members of a family tend to rule the party.Eg:Nehru(Gandhi) family rules the congress party.........
Money and muscle power - as parties are only interested in winning power they nominate those candidates who have or can raise a lot of money.rich people buisiness people and criminals thus rule the party........
They do not offer a meaningful choice to the voters - not many paties are different in their policies and ideologies.Sometimes people cannot even elect different leaders as same set of leaders keep changin their parties.!Eg:Difference between Labour party and the conservative party of Britain is very little..