97% of parties are unrecognised, they rarely file donation reports

  • The majority of India’s political parties (2,044 out of 2,099) are unrecognised.
  • An unrecognised party is either a newly registered one, or one that has not won enough votes in Assembly or general elections to be classified as a state party, or one that has never contested an election.
  • It does not enjoy certain benefits that regional and national parties are entitled to, such as an exclusive election symbol.
  • A report by the Association for Democratic Reforms, which analysed the contribution reports submitted by registered unrecognised parties between 2013-14 and 2015-16, found that only 5%-6% of them submitted these in the three years.
  • As long as political parties file Income-Tax returns and submit details of donations received above Rs 20,000 to the EC, they are exempt from Income-Tax.

Source:IE

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