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NCERT Solutions for Class 9th Social Science Chapter 7 Political Parties — In-text Questions

Book page 172 Updated on2026-09-08

Q1.
How do we learn about various issues that affect citizens in their daily lives?
Answer

Mainly through political parties and the media platforms on which they argue.

The chapter's answer is that parties do not only fight elections — between elections they organise public opinion and campaign on specific issues (Fig. 7.9). When a party takes up a question of price, employment, schooling, water or safety, it turns a private difficulty that many households face separately into a public issue that has to be answered in the legislature. The chapter adds that parties "discuss and debate on issues of local, state, national, and international concern through various media platforms" — so newspapers, television and the internet carry the argument to citizens who were never at the rally.

Why parties, and not only the news: reporting can tell you that something has happened. A party has to go further and say what should be done about it, and then defend that position against rivals who say something else. That clash is how a citizen gets to hear more than one side of the same problem.
Q2.
How do voters get to know about the candidates contesting elections?
Answer

Mostly through the party the candidate belongs to. The chapter says there are often dozens of contestants for each constituency, most candidates belong to a political party though some contest independently, and voters learn about candidates "their policies, their vision for development, and their positions on various social, economic, cultural, and political issues primarily through the political parties."

The concrete channels are:

  • the party's manifesto, which sets out its promises for that election;
  • election rallies, where the agenda is presented and the promises elaborated;
  • door-to-door canvassing, pamphlets, posters and wall writing;
  • debates and interviews on media platforms;
  • the election symbol, allotted by the ECI, which lets a voter identify a party's candidate on the ballot even without reading the name.
Did you know? The ECI also runs the Suvidha app for contesting candidates and parties, through which they get nomination forms and apply for permission for meetings, rallies, vehicles and loudspeakers, and can check the permission status in real time (Fig. 7.6). So even the campaigning you see on the street has passed through an official permission system.
Q3.
How is the election agenda set?
Answer

The agenda is set by a two-way traffic between citizens and parties, and Fig. 7.11 draws it exactly that way — the arrow starts at Citizens, goes to Political Parties (Organise Public Opinion), and only then to Contest Elections (Plan Campaigns and Prepare Manifestos).

  1. Parties work at the grassroots level, as Fig. 7.9 says, and pick up what people are actually worried about.
  2. They organise these scattered concerns into a smaller set of issues they choose to campaign on.
  3. These issues are written into the manifesto and repeated in rallies and on media platforms.
  4. Rival parties respond with their own priorities, and the issues that survive that argument become the agenda of the election.
Why the direction of the arrow matters: if the agenda were set only by parties, an election would be a choice between slogans that nobody asked for. Because parties depend on votes, they have a standing reason to notice what citizens raise. That is what the chapter means by saying parties help the democracy function by providing governance, accountability, representation and public engagement.
Q4.
What role do political parties play in elections?
Answer

Fig. 7.9 lists four roles, and Fig. 7.11 shows what happens after the votes are counted.

Role (Fig. 7.9)What it looks like in an election
Organise public opinionTurn scattered individual concerns into public issues that can be voted on
Campaign on specific issuesRallies, manifestos and media debates on named questions, not vague appeals
Offer voters meaningful choicesPut up candidates with different programmes, so a vote is a real decision
Enable voters to make informed decisionsSupply the information about candidates, policies and positions on which a voter judges

After the result, Fig. 7.11 splits the parties into two paths that are both necessary:

  • the winning party forms the government and then formulates and implements policies;
  • the opposition party ensures accountability and participates in debates and committees.
Why the Opposition is on the same chart: losing an election does not end a party's role in the democracy. The chapter places "Ensures Accountability" on the Opposition's branch, which means the losers of the election are given a job by the system itself — to question the government continuously, and not only at the next poll.
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