(a) The challenges faced by political parties are as under:
(i) Lack of internal democracy: Lack of internal democracy is the most important challenge which most of the political parties face. All over the world, there is a tendency in political parties towards the concentration of power in one or a few leaders at the top. Most of the parties do not have an open list of its members, they do not hold its routine organisational meetings, fail to conduct their internal elections regularly, and refuse to share information.
(ii) Dynastic succession: This is the second most important challenge in front of most of the political parties in India. Those, who happen to be the leaders, are in a position of unfair advantage to favour people close to them or even their family members. In many parties, the top positions are always controlled by members of one family.
(iii) Money and muscle power: Since parties are focused only on winning elections, they tend to use shortcuts to win elections. They tend to nominate those candidates who have or can raise lots of money. Rich people and companies who provide funds to the parties tend to have an influence on the policies and decisions of the party.
(iv) Lack of meaningful choice to the voters: In the modern era, very often, parties do not seem to offer a meaningful choice to the voters. In order to offer a meaningful choice, parties must be significantly different. In recent years, there has been a decline in the ideological differences among parties in most parts of the world. For example, the difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party in Britain is very little.
(v) Negative politics: Most of the political parties follow negative politics, i.e., just criticising the opposite party. This diverts the attention of the people from the core issues.
OR
(b) Due to the following reasons, we can say that political parties play an important role in democratic countries:
(i) Political parties contest elections: Political parties are the axis of a democratic government. In democracies, elections are fought mainly among the candidates put up by political parties (ii) Parties form and run governments: Formation of government is one of the major aim of the political parties. In democratic countries, the governments are formed and run by political parties. The representatives of the government are the members of different political parties.
(iii) Parties play decisive role in making laws: Formally, laws debated and passed in the legislature. But as most of the members belong to a party, they have to go by the dictates of the party leadership, overriding their personal opinions. Thus, parties play a decisive role in making laws for a country.
(iv) Parties play the role of opposition: Parties, those lose in the elections, work as opposition parties by criticising government for its failures or wrong policies. They also mobilise opposition to the government.
(v) Parties shape public opinion: Parties raise and highlight issues. They have lakhs of members and activists spread all over the country. They sometimes also launch movements for the resolution of problems faced by people.