lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar on Thursday said it was a mirage that consolidation along caste lines during elections leads to empowerment of Dalits and they get an opportunity to assert themselves.
Delivering a lecture on Parliamentary Democracy in India at the University of Cambridge in United States, Kumar said critics believe that smaller parties often wield an influence disproportionate to their support base and that regional issues at times take precedence over national interests.
“This is a transitional phase, a part of the churning process. Given the maturity of India’s representative polity, it is highly unlikely that parochial concerns will be allowed to override the national priorities,” she said. The Speaker observed that that religion was another factor that plays a role during election. “The decline of one-party dominance has given way to a multi-party system representing a wide range of India’s diversity. India’s governing superstructure has become a complex kaleidoscope of multifarious interests. It is viewed as a second wave of democratic upsurge, which has brought into political salience, the interests and aspirations of the hitherto marginalised sections,” she said.