[valarauko]

The party holds a simple majority (~ 55%) in the Lower House, while the alliance holds a near super majority (~ 63%) - the Indian system holds a super majority at 2/3rds of each house present and voting, not the total membership of the house.

The alliance does not hold the upper house, though they have a near simple majority.

[portpecos]

1984: Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress Party got a super majority (77%)

1980: Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party got a super majority (65%)

1977: Indira Gandhi's Congress Party got a majority (56%)

1971: Indira Gandhi's Congress Party got a super majority (68%)

1967: Indira Gandhi's Congress Party got a majority (55%)

1962: Nehru's Congress Party at 73%

1957: Nehru's Congress Party at 75%

1952: Nehru's Congress Party at 74%

If the complaint is, "Supermajorities aren't a Democracy", then it must be agreed upon that India hasn't been been a Democracy under the Congress Party for 32 years out of the 75 years of independence.

[valarauko]

> If the complaint is, "Supermajorities aren't a Democracy"

Is anybody actually saying that? For what its worth, I do think super majorities are corrosive long term for the multiparty Westminster style parliamentary systems. There is little incentive for compromise building or genuine debate on bills. It might even work if political parties had visible internal debate and discussion, and we can largely agree that this is not a thing in Indian political parties.

[dhruval]

The original claim was that the senate was bypassed (non-democratic).

A majority in the Senate is democratic if democratically elected etc.

Whereas increasing the power of the executive as is the trend in the USA by bypassing the house / Senate is corrosive to democracy in my view.

[valarauko]

The original claim was that the senate was bypassed (non-democratic).

A majority in the Senate is democratic if democratically elected etc.

I'm not sure what this means - that the NDA government could bypass the Rajya Sabha for 90% (the number quoted in the original claim) of bills? That doesn't make sense. I don't see how that is even possible.

The only way that the Rajya Sabha can be effectively bypassed is by the Lok Sabha speaker certifying a bill as a Money Bill (famously, the Aadhaar Bill was a Money Bill). In that case the objections raised by the Rajya Sabha are non-binding on the Lok Sabha and can be rejected by the lower house, and is deemed to have passed after 14 days. I do not think that 90% of bills introduced by the Modi government were Money Bills. So how does the claim of 90% work?

[portpecos]

I think anuraj edited his comment. He originally said, “Modi bypasses parliament to pass his own bills.” So our debates are starting to lose context.

[valarauko]

I see.

[neeleshs]

>>Also Modi has the distinction of passing maximum bills without debate and bypassing the state senate altogether

I think this comment can be interpreted that way to some extent. Reads like one person has the power to bypass an entire legislative house. That's not the reality though.

I do agree with you that having supermajority for a long time is not a good thing. Unfortunately for India, that's how it has been historically (Congress for long periods of time and now it looks like BJP)