On 21st December Election Commission released a list of 255 political parties it delisted during the period February 2016 to December 2016. I fully support the act of Election Commission to delist 255 political parties who exist only on paper and not contested any election since 2005.
Some of the so called "Political Parties" are set up purely to launder money by avoiding taxes. How this happens? Section 13A of the income tax provides as below
- Income by way of House Property or Income from Other Sources or income by way of voluntary contributions shall be excluded from income of a political party for purposes of income tax, meaning there are no taxes on these incomes
- The exception as in point 1 above is available only if political parties maintain full records of these income. However here is the catch, voluntary contributions less than Rs.20,000 can be in cash and there is no requirement for political parties to maintain records of donors
So a person can donate upto Rs.20,000 in cash (this can be done multiple times) and get back the same money back from the political party on a fictitious service through cheque thereby converting black money into white.
A small statistics, in India
- there are 1851 registered & unregistered political parties of which
- 7 are national parties and 58 state parties
- Only 1/4th of these 1851 parties contested in 2009 & 2014 general elections, meaning majority the balance 3/4th parties exist only on paper
On a review of the list of 255 issued by election commission as per a Hindustan Times report "Interestingly, the addresses given by some of these parties include home minister’s present residence, and lawyer’s chambers at Patiala House courts"
What an absurdity? On one hand we common people are being put to huge hardship to erase black economy and which hardship the common person takes it on his / her stride to clean the economy. However on the other hand there is a full blown conspiracy to create black money which happens right under the very nose of the Government?
The Government should introduce with immediate effect the following steps
- Set up a KYPP (Know Your Policial Party) procedure / norm which should be enforced in full swing by election commission and all political parties should provide full details of their constitution and accounts. Failure to do so within 6 months parties should be placed under temporary suspension and failure to provide within 1 year should be permanently delisted.
- All accounts of political parties should be made public as done by corporates - no exception
- Set up an independent body under Election Commission to audit / check the accounts of political parties and challenge the numbers. Delist parties whose accounts are not as per norms laid down by Election Commission
Dear Lawmakers / Bureaucrats tough and quick action is required here if we have to clean our political system and also to clean our society of the menace of black economy.
