Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is all set to get the status of a national party

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is all set to get the status of a national party

Subject: Polity

Context: Ten years after it was formed, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is all set to get the status of a national party after securing nearly 13% of the vote share and five seats in the Gujarat Assembly election.

According to Election Commission (EC) rules, a party gets national status if it is recognised as a State party in four States. For recognition as a State party, it has to secure at least 6% of the valid votes polled and two seats in the Assembly or Lok Sabha elections.

Gujarat is the fourth State where the AAP will be recognised as a State party. While the party has governments in Delhi and Punjab, in Goa, it had won two Assembly seats and secured 6.67% of the votes.

Recognition of National and State Parties

• The Election Commission registers political parties for the purpose of elections and grants them recognition as national or state parties on the basis of their poll performance.
• The other parties are simply declared as registered unrecognised parties.
• The recognition granted by the Commission to the parties determines their right to certain privileges like allocation of the party symbols, provision of time for political broadcasts on the state-owned television and radio stations and access to electoral rolls.
• Further, the recognized parties need only one proposer for filing the nomination. Also, these parties are allowed to have forty “star campaigners” during the time of elections and the registered–unrecognized parties are allowed to have twenty “star campaigners”.
• The travel expenses of these star campaigners are not included in the election expenditure of the candidates of their parties.
• Every national party is allotted a symbol exclusively reserved for its use throughout the country.
• Similarly, every state party is allotted a symbol exclusively reserved for its use in the state or states in which it is so recognised. A registered-unrecognised party, on the other hand, can select a symbol from a list of free symbols.
• The national parties and state parties are also known as all-India parties and regional parties respectively.

Conditions for Recognition as a National Party

• A party is recognised as a national party if any of the following conditions is fulfilled:
• If it secures six per cent of valid votes polled in any four or more states at a general election to the Lok Sabha or to the legislative assembly; and, in addition, it wins four seats in the Lok Sabha from any state or states; or
• If it wins two per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha at a general election; and these candidates are elected from three states; or
• If it is recognised as a state party in four states.

Conditions for Recognition as a State Party

• A party is recognised as a state party in a state if any of the following conditions is fulfilled:
• If it secures 6% of the valid votes polled in the state at a general election to the legislative assembly of the state concerned; and, in addition, it wins 2 seats in the assembly of the state concerned; or
• If it secures 6% of the valid votes polled in the state at a general election to the Lok Sabha from the state concerned; and, in addition, it wins 1 seat in the Lok Sabha from the state concerned; or
• If it wins 3% of seats in the legislative assembly at a general election to the legislative assembly of the state concerned or 3 seats in the assembly, whichever is more; or
• If it wins 1 seat in the Lok Sabha for every 25 seats or any fraction thereof allotted to the state at a general election to the Lok Sabha from the state concerned; or
• If it secures 8% of the total valid votes polled in the state at a General Election to the Lok Sabha from the state or to the legislative assembly of the state. This condition was added in 2011.

As of now, there are Eight national parties in the country — BJP, Congress, Trinamool Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, CPI, CPI(M), BSP and the National Peoples Party, Meghalaya. Aap when approved will become the ninth one.

FIRST NATIONAL PARTY FROM NORTH-EAST

The National People’s Party (NPP) has been recognised as the eighth national party by the Election Commission of India, making it the first regional party of the north-east to be accorded the status.

• NPP was given the national party status for fulfilling the following conditions:
  • In the general election to the Legislative Assembly of Arunachal, the party polled 14.55% (Polling more than 6% of the total valid votes in the last general election) of the valid votes.
  • The NPP, in addition, won five out of the sixty seats in the Legislative Assembly of Arunachal Pradesh.
  • Based on above mentioned two criteria, the party fulfilled the requirements for recognition as State Party in the State of Arunachal Pradesh.
  • Thereby, after its recognition as State party in Arunachal Pradesh, it has become a recognized State party in four States i.e. Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.
  • Thus the Party fulfilled the eligibility condition for being recognized as National Party.
  • Further, as per the request of the Party, the symbol “Book” has been allotted as the reserved symbol for the ‘National People’s Party’.
• Before NPP’s elevation, India had seven national parties.
  • Trinamool Congress, led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, became the seventh in September 2016.
• The National People’s Party (NPP) was formed in 2013 by the current Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma’s father and former Lok Sabha Speaker, late PurnoAgitok Sangma.

Benenfits of National Party in India:

• Recognition as a national or a State party ensures that the election symbol of that party can’t be used by any other political party in polls across India.
• Recognized ‘State’ and ‘National’ party requires only one proposer to file nomination.
• The recognized ‘state’ and National Parties are given two sets of electoral rolls free of cost by the Election Commission.
• In addition to this the candidates contesting on the ticket of National or state party get a copy of the electoral roll free of cost during the general elections.
• The National parties receive land or building from the government to establish their party office.
• National parties can have upto40 star campaigners while other can have upto 20 star campaigners.
• The expenditure incurred on the travelling and other expenses of star campaigners is not included in the election expenditure of the party candidate.
• National Parties get the time slot on the national and state television & Radio to address the people and convey their message to the mass people.
• The Election Commission had amended a rule on August 22, 2016, under which it will now review the national and state status of political parties in every ten years instead of five.
• So now the status of present national and state party will remain intact till 2026
• It is observed that a lot of political parties are created to ’round trip’ the black money into white. The Election Commission has the mandate to register a political party, but it can’t deregister any party. The EC is demanding to get power to deregister a party. But this demand is pending with the Law Ministry.
• But the Commission had used its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution to “delist” parties for being dormant and not contesting elections for a long time.
• So it is the need of the hour that government should take every strict action to bring out transparency in the elections.

When can a party lose its tag?

• Once recognised as a national or a state party, a political party retains that status irrespective of its performance in the next elections.
• It loses the given status only if it fails to fulfil any of the conditions for two successive Assembly and two successive Lok Sabha elections.