Indian Polity Quiz: Political Parties and Electoral Reforms

Article 324 places the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of all elections to Parliament, to the state legislatures and to the offices of President and Vice-President in the Election Commission of India, and this is the Article the Commission relies on when…

The elephant is the reserved symbol of the Bahujan Samaj Party, founded by Kanshi Ram in 1984; because the elephant is also used by another party in Assam and Sikkim, the Election Commission allots it to the Bahujan Samaj Party elsewhere, a detail that shows how reserved symbols work under…

The Constitution (Sixty-first Amendment) Act, 1988 amended Article 326 and lowered the qualifying age for a voter from twenty-one to eighteen years, and it took effect in March 1989, so the general election of 1989 was the first in which eighteen-year-olds voted.

The Tenth Schedule was added by the Fifty-second Amendment in 1985 and it disqualifies a member of Parliament or of a state legislature who voluntarily gives up the membership of the party on whose ticket the seat was won, or who votes or abstains against the party direction; the Speaker…

Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 is the provision under which an association or body of individual citizens applies to the Election Commission for registration as a political party, and the application must carry a specific undertaking of true faith and allegiance to the Constitution, to…

The Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 was issued by the Election Commission under Article 324 and the Conduct of Elections Rules, and it governs the recognition of national and state parties, the reservation of symbols for them, the list of free symbols for other candidates, and disputes between…

In this judgment of 2013 the Supreme Court held that the right to reject every candidate is part of the freedom of expression and of the secrecy of the ballot, and it directed the Election Commission to provide a None of the Above button; the Commission used it from the…

This committee reported in 1998 on state funding of elections and recommended that funding be partial, be given in kind rather than as cash, and be confined to recognised national and state parties, with the caution that the state of public finances allowed only a limited beginning.

The machine was used for the first time in 1982 at the Paravur assembly constituency in Kerala, in a by-election and only in a part of the polling stations; the experiment was challenged for want of a statutory basis, Parliament then amended the law in 1989 to permit the machine…

The Election Commission of India was constituted on 25 January 1950, a day before the Constitution came into force, and the day has been observed as National Voters' Day since 2011 to enrol young citizens who turn eighteen and to hand them the elector photo identity card.

Section 34 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 fixes the security deposit for a Lok Sabha candidate at twenty-five thousand rupees, and a candidate belonging to a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe pays half of it; the deposit is forfeited if the candidate does not poll more…

A Constitution Bench struck down the electoral bond scheme in February 2024 in the petitions led by the Association for Democratic Reforms, holding that anonymous corporate funding of parties violates the voter's right to information under Article 19(1)(a) and that the amendments permitting unlimited company donations were arbitrary; the Court…