Election Commission lists 200 political parties which mostly exist on paper, will send it to Income Tax for inspection
New Delhi, Dec 21: The Election Commission of India has listed 200 political parties which exist mostly on paper. As per reports, the Election Commission suspects these dormant parties are used for money laundering activities. Reportedly the EC will write to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) informing its decision to delist these 200 suspected political parties.
EC officials suspect that these political parties could be doing money-laundering operations, as these parties have not contested any election since 2005 and exist mostly on papers. The Indian Express quoted a ‘source’ saying that it is just the beginning and they expect to weed out all non-serious parties. Many of these parties, the source claimed hasn’t even bothered to file Income Tax returns, or if they do, they never send a copy to them.
The IE report also claimed that the EC hopes that the CBDT will closely look into the matter and at the financials of these delisted parties to send out a clear message that forming a political party to launder money is not a good idea any more. Again the ‘source’ is quoted saying that after waiting for years for successive governments to act on its proposal to make changes to relevant laws ensuring there is adequate transparency in the manner in which funds flow in and out of political parties, the EC decided to resort to its inherent powers under Article 324 of the Constitution which empowers it to “control the conduct of all elections”. It is this power which has enabled their delisting provision.
A report brought forward by IE shows that EC data shows currently seven National Political parties, 58 state parties and 1786 Registed Unrecognised parties. Under the present law setting, the EC is authorised to register a political party but there is no provision for it to deregister any already recognised party. In this regard, the EC has reportedly written to many Governments in the past , seeking power to deregister ‘non-serious’ political parties, but without any success.
In 2004, the then Chief Election Commissioner TS Krishna Murthy wrote to the then Prime Minister recommending, on the issue of funding, that all political parties should be asked by law to keep details of all donors even if the amount of donation is lesser than Rs. 20,000.
However, the present rule is still the opposite of the recommendation and states that only details of donations amounting to more than Rs. 20,000 should be kept and shared iwth the Ec every year.
