ECI's action against 2,100 parties 'cleanup of NPA's in political space'

Action against over 2,100 registered unrecognised political parties (RUPPs) for non-compliance with statutory requirements, especially related to income tax exemptions and filing of audited reports, is a cleanup exercise of the non-performing assets (NPA) in the political space in the country.

This is the second major decision taken by the ECI after Rajiv Kumar assumed charge of Chief Election Commissioner on May 15.

Massive cleanup began in political space after Kumar took charge as Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on May 15. Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey was also part of the meeting of the Election Commission of India (ECI) which took the decision to act against such political parties.

ECI on Wednesday initiated graded action against 2,100 RUPPs under the relevant sections 29A and 29C of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. There are 2,796 registered unrecognised political parties in India as in September 2021, which is an increase of over 300 per cent since 2001.

ECI found that out of 2,354 RUPPs, over 92 per cent RUPPs have not filed their contribution report in 2019. 199 RUPPs claimed Rs 445 crore IT exemptions in 2018-19. 219 RUPPs claimed Rs 608 crore IT exemptions in 2019-20. Out of these, 66 RUPPs have claimed income tax exemption without submitting contribution reports in Form 24A as mandated under section 29C of the Act. 87 RUPPs have been found to be not in existence. For the year 2019, 2,056 RUPPs have not yet filed their Annual Audited Accounts. In the general election 2019, out of 2,354 RUPPs, only 623 contested elections. This means 70 per cent of RUPPs did not contest elections. The Commission has noted with serious concern that out of a total of 2,796 RUPPs, a large number are neither taking part in the electoral process nor adhering to the one or several of the above requirements which is not only violative of statutory requirements but also defeats the purpose of the clean electoral ecosystem, the ECI said.

Kumar who was Finance-cum-Secretary, Department of Financial Services Secretary is credited for cleaning the NPA's of Banks. He is credited with the turnaround of the Banking Sector and establishing in a short span that lenders and borrowers have to stick to prudential norms of lending. To curb the circulation of black money in a layered fashion, Kumar had frozen bank accounts of 3.38 lakh shell companies used for creating fictitious equity.

Kumar, after taking charge of CEC on May 15, in its first meeting of the commission on May 20, The Commission unanimously decided that Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners (ECs), Anup Chandra Pandey will not take any income tax benefits presently given to them. Further, CEC and ECs will avail of only one LTC in a year in place of the three LTCs presently available to them.

( With inputs from ANI )

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor