Power to the parties

India has a unique multi-party political system. Given the diversity of culture, religion and languages, it reflects in politics where there are dime-a-dozen parties in each state. The Election Commission surely has an enviable job keeping track of all these jokers.

Of the entire lot, the most confusing and confounding are the ones in Tamil Nadu. Like the names of people, the names of parties are also tongue twisters. The two main parties are called AIADMK and just DMK. It means All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham and Dravida Munnetra Kazagham. You might think that the DMK probably came out of the AIADMK. But no, it's the AIADMK which was born of DMK. Usually they break out with bigger names to indicate where they came from and what they stand for.

The AIADMK started a trend. Soon you had the PMK, DMDK, VCK, MNMK, PDK, UTEMK, KIP and so on it goes. Obviously, I cannot expand all these abbreviations here since it will take two days. Wooing all these letters are the big sharks; Congress and the BJP. Of course you have the ususal suspects like CPM, Janata Party and BSP also vying for attention. Now you can see how wonderful this scenario is and what a party this Indian democrazy has become.