Nature: The nature of the Indian party system can be traced back to the Indian National Movement. Indian National Congress (INC) was founded by A.O. Hume in 1885. It was a forum to unite the people of India to fight against the British Imperialism.

Due to ideological differences, Muslim League was founded in 1906. Other parties like Hindu Maha Sabha, Communist Party of India, Forward Block, and Praja Socialist Party, etc., emerged in the successive years. Later, in the post-independence period, Jan Sangh, Janatha Party, Bharatiya Janatha Party, Janata Dal, Nationalist Congress Party, have grown according to the needs of the time and they started to work to get power.

1. Extra Constitutional growth: There is no reference in the Constitution of India about how many political parties are to be existed in the country. According to Article 19 of the Constitution, all citizens can have the freedom to form associations or unions. Political parties are established on the basis of this liberty. Hence, political parties have no constitutional base.

2. Prevalence of Multi-party system: India is a divergent country with many religions, tribes, languages, culture, and traditions. This heterogeneity leads to the emergence of many political parties to protect their interests in the mainstream of the country.

3. Spilt and merger: It is a common phenomenon in the Indian party system. Various reasons contributed for this split like ideological differences, egoism, power hunger, etc.

4. End of single-party era: India was under Congress rule till 1977. The happenings between 1975-1977, forced small parties to unite and fight against Congress and capture power and put an end to the single-party era.

5. Dissident activities: The meanness of leaders like personal attitudes, favouritism, nepotism lead to dissident activities. Repetition of such happenings instigates leaders to go against the ideology of the party and paves was to political instability.

6. Defection: Elected members of the Legislature change their parties often for personal benefits or differences of opinion and other reasons. It ruins the values of democracy and destabilizes the government.

7. Leader worship: Most of the political parties in India emphasize on the leaders rather than the ideologies of the parties. The leader decides the destiny of the political party e.g. Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi of Congress, A.B. Vajpayee of BJP. Leaders with charisma dominate the whole party.

8. Alliances without principles: Political parties are formed with principles of democracy and secularism but they ignore them for want of power and make unholy alliances.

9. Dominance of Regional parties: The presence of regional parties during the first general elections did not influence the voters and they were rejected. During the 1980s, they emerged very strong and dominated the political scenario, e.g. DMK, A1ADMK, Telugu Desam, Shiv Sena National, Conference, AGP, JD(S), RJD, SJP, BJD and other parties playing a significant role during the formation of Government.

10. Religious, Lingual and Regionalism: The basis of political parties in India is religion, language, regionalism and the like. e.g. Muslim league, Akalidal, Shiv Sena, DMK, A1ADMK, Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES) Telangana Rastriya Samiti (TRS) and others. In spite of the rules of the Election Commission, such political parties exist.

11. Leftist and Rightist Parties: Party system in India consists of Leftist and Rightist ideologies, e.g. CPI, CPI (M), Forward Block, RPI and Socialist parties who have belief in revolutionary ideology and drastic changes in the system form the left front. Parties like Congress, BJP, SP, NCP, BSP, RJD, JD (U), JD (S) and others who believe in moderate changes in the system form the right front.

12. The era of coalition: When no single political party secures absolute majority likeminded political parties come together and join as a single largest group to form a coalition Government. The era of coalition started during 1977 when Janata Party came to power headed by Sri Morarjee Desai as Prime Minister at the centre along with other parties. This was followed by National Front, United Front, NDA, UPA, etc.