No politics, no work but it's a party

EXISTENIAL CRISIS: This party has an office but no political activity to its credit.

        

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The Election Commission, on paper, has some 900 groups registered as political parties—and paper is just about it.

Political parties are exempt from taxes—a clause that has created political parties that are really tax evasion rackets.

The Champaran Vikas Party, the Bihar People's Party, the Krantikari Samyavadi Party and the Bhartiya Momin Party have offices in Patna but these parties don’t exist.

The Champaran Vikas Party runs from a flat but the nameplate outside bears the name of BJP MLA Vinod Narayan Jha. The Bihar People's Party runs from an empty house which doubles up as a guesthouse for wedding parties.

Ask about the Krantikari Samyavadi Party outside its office and people say they have not even heard about it. The office of the Bhartiya Momin Party serves as a doctor’s clinic too but the party has not done much in the last 20 years.

There are hundreds of such political parties in Bihar, but they rarely fight elections and their real agenda is to collect funds and evade taxes.

Come down to Hyderabad and the situation is a little better. At least many of the registered parties here exist or did exist in the past. Many have now merged and allied themselves with existing regional heavy weights

P Ramakrishnaiah, a retired officer of the Indian Ordnance Factory, formed the BC United Front in 2004. The party is now in talks with Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi’s party for an alliance.

Nandamuri Harikishna, son of the late N T Rama Rao, formed the Anna Telegu Desam Party in 1999, but later merged with former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam, the party he had rebelled against.

In Uttar Pradesh such ‘one-room parties’ work a few seasons, have no major following and vanish away for months. Like, the Lok Tantrik Party and the Ekalavya Samaj Party that have locks on their offices.

The Election Commission recently complained against the Rashtriya Vikas Party and the Parmarth Party in Faridabad to the Income Tax authorities and the Prime Minister’s Office for the contributions they had received. The parties got almost Rs 3 crore from individuals and a private firm, which donated Rs 2 crore.

The Election Commission says it wants more power to crack against such parties. "As early as 1998 we had made a recommendation that we should be allowed to de-recognise parties. If that happened we could de-recognise those parties not participating in the political process. Give them a couple of years and at the end of it if they do not participate then we could derecognize them,” says Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami.

To be recognised as a state party, an organisation must do kind of political activity for at least five years continuously and send at least 4 per cent of the state’s quota to the Lok Sabha or 3.33 per cent of members to the state Assembly. Easy rules that allow fake parties to be formed easily.