Briefly discusses the role of small parties that do not participate in elections in India but are errand boys of the larger ones in criminality like cash and drugs distribution during elections in India.

1. Dance of Democracy to Descent into Mockocracy – I
Shantanu Basu
India went into its seventeenth general election (hereafter GE-2019) on Apr. 11, 2019; spread
over five weeks of intensive campaigning. The electoral process attracted 2293 parties, of which
149 were registered in February and March, 2019, alone1. The newbies sported exotic names like
Bahujan Azad Party (Sitamarhi, Bihar), Samoohik Ekta Party (Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh), Rashtryia
Saaf Niti Party (Jaipur, Rajasthan), Sabsi Badi Party (Delhi), Bharosa Party (Telengana) and
New Generation People’s Party (Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu). Nearly all catered to specific
caste/sub-caste or trade affiliations. The multiplicity of these parties, nearly all unrecognized by
India’s Election Commission (ECI) causes ECI to allot symbols ranging from a mundane battery
torch to a sportive cricket bat, a plebian auto rickshaw and an affluent air conditioner2. Needless
to add, the voter is presented a bewildering array of candidates on a single keypad of an
Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).
Registering a new political party costs just Rs. 25000. In addition, ECI requires Individual
affidavits from at least 100 members of the party to the effect that the said member is a registered
elector and that he/she is not a member of any other political party registered with the
Commission duly sworn before a First Class Magistrate/Oath Commissioner)/Notary Public3. A
Delhi-based law firm even claims on its web site that it specializes in registering newbies and
that it has helped register over 400 new political parties4. All these not only make it facile to
register a political party with a hundred ‘dummy’ candidates whose antecedents are often
dubious, even unverifiable but also plough murky finances into them. Indian political parties
receive the bulk of donations from undisclosed sources in FY 2018 (51.40%) by way of
individual contributions less than Rs. 200005. According to Section 13A of the Income-tax Act,
political parties are exempt from income tax provided they maintain books of accounts and
record details of individuals making donations over Rs 20,0006. While individual candidates
have ceilings imposed by ECI on their campaigns, no such limit is prescribed for expenses
1 Press Trust of India: Lok Sabha elections 2019: India now has 2,293 political parties, 149 registered between
February and March, Hindustan Times, Mar. 17, 2019 available at https://www.hindustantimes.com/lok-sabha-
elections/lok-sabha-elections-2019-india-now-has-2-293-political-parties-149-registered-between-february-and-
march/story-NoYuL5W0ppJ3kP5lTt7xhO.html on Apr. 27, 2019
2 CNN Style: Ceilingfans,broomsand mangoes:Theelection symbols of India's political parties dated Apr. 12, 2019
including above photograph available at https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/india-election-party-
symbols/index.html on Apr. 27, 2019
3 Election Commission of India: FAQs – Registration of Political Parties available at
https://eci.gov.in/faqs/registration-of-political-parties/faqs-registration-of-political-parties-r5/ on Apr. 27, 2019
4 ABS Associates: Political Party Registration available at https://www.absassociates.co.in/political-party-
registration/ on Apr. 27, 2019
5 Rodrigues, Jeanette, Chaudhary,Archana and Dormido, Hannah: A Murky Flood of Money Pours Into the World’s
Largest Election in Bloomberg dated Mar. 17, 2019 available at https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-india-
election-funds/ on Apr. 27, 2019
6 Indian Express:Kejriwal seeks setting up of commission to probe funding of political parties dated Dec. 17, 2016
available at https://indianexpress.com/article/india/arvind-kejriwal-seeks-setting-up-of-commission-to-probe-
funding-of-political-parties-4431642/ on Apr. 27, 2019

2. incurred either by a party or the leader of a party for propagating the party’s programme7. The
establishment of newbie parties like All India Ravidas Samta Party, Ambedkar Kranti Dal Fauji
Janta Party (Military People’s Party), Rashtriya Vyapari Party, Nasha Mukt Bharat Party,
Sikshit Berozgar Sena, Bhartiya Imaandar Party, has caused the number of parties that
participated in GE-1951 at 53 to zoom to 465 in 2014, i.e. a phenomenal ratio of 0.86 parties for
every Lok Sabha seat. Interestingly, only about a fifth of all registered parties compete in India’s
national elections. And what happens to the remaining 80% that cannot or do not put up
candidates? That is precisely where the rub lies.
A large percentage of these parties maybe fronts for larger national or regional parties. Parties
also register multiple candidates to get around legal caps on how much an individual can spend,
with the most popular member getting most of the resources. Not only do these parties pander to
caste/sub-caste equations and generate support for larger parties but are also useful in collecting
‘contributions’, nearly all in cash and below the individual Rs. 20000 limit of ECI. According to
analysis in IndiaSpend, one-fourth, or 1786, of these unrecognized parties were in Uttar Pradesh.
The report noted that between 2013-14 and 2015-16, unrecognized parties in Rajasthan declared
the highest amount of donations – Rs 10.79 crore – followed by parties from Telangana with Rs
3.82 crore and Haryana with Rs 2.74 crore. Among the unrecognised parties that declared the
highest donations, ranging from Rs 3.7 crore to Rs 2.3 lakh, are the Indian Peoples Green Party,
the National Unionist Zamindara Party and Shining India Party in Rajasthan, Rashtriya Ahinsa
Mancha in West Bengal, Dharmarajya Paksha in Maharashtra, Lok Satta Party in Telangana,
Aarakshan Virodhi Party and Haryana Lokhit Party in Haryana. The ADR report also pointed
out that the National Unionist Zamindara Party, registered in Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan, which
declared that it had received donations amounting to Rs 3.70 crore during 2013-14,
declared voluntary contributions amounting to Rs 11.56 crore during 2014-15 and Rs 6
lakh during 2015-16 in its audit report, but its contribution reports were not available in the
public domain.
The report also found a “lucrative political economy” revolving around elections, with “sundry
small parties using elections to evade taxes, reroute black money and make quick bucks by
coercing serious candidates to pay for withdrawing their candidates.” Their narrow focus – on
the sub-region, or a particular caste or community – often multiplies their prospects of election.
The Apna Dal finds support mainly among the OBC communities of the Varanasi-Mirzapur
region while the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party appeals to the Rajbhar community in eastern
Uttar Pradesh, which constitutes about 18% of the population. By appealing to their respective
communities, these parties manage to split the vote bank and earn the leverage to negotiate a
‘price’ for withdrawal from the election process8.
The votes these small parties collect are often geared to styming the chances of a front-runner
from an opposition party and then extract a ‘price’ for supporting the highest polling candidate.
Lucknow-based Adarsh Rashtriya Vikas Party received Rs 88 lakh as donation in the fiscal year
ending March 2012. The party spent Rs 84 lakh – Rs 25 lakh on advertising and Rs 27 lakh on
7 Hindustan Times: Lok Sabha election 2019: How much can a candidate spend and on what dated Mar. 6, 2019
available at https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/cost-of-an-election-who-can-spend-what-and-how-
much/story-gbiG8nbx2mLhePAeQ6fmoM.html , on Apr. 27, 2019
8 The Wire: In India's Poll Economy, 97% of Registered Political Parties are Unrecognised dated Jun. 6, 2018
availableathttps://thewire.in/political-economy/india-poll-economy-unrecognised-registered-political-parties, on
Apr. 27, 2019

3. stationery. In the 2012 assembly polls, the party contested 68 seats and all of its candidates lost
their security deposit, meaning they failed to secure one-sixth of valid votes cast in their
respective constituencies, so their security deposit was forfeited. In 2012 again, a Kanpur-based
political party, Akhil Bhartiya Nagrik Seva Sangh, received a donation of Rs 8 lakh, and had a
bank balance of Rs 18 lakh. The ECI did not have any record of it participating in any election.
(1166 words) To be continued.
The author is a senior public policy analyst and commentator
Dance of Democracy to Descent into Mockocracy – II
Shantanu Basu
In the 2012 assembly polls, candidates of Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party came in third or fourth
position in many constituencies. In the Rudrapur constituency, the winner won by a 5% margin
while the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party candidate drew 5.6% votes. The Suheldev Samaj Party
was clearly in a make-or-break position. In Bithari Chainpur constituency in the 2012 assembly
elections, the first and third positions went to Muslim candidates. The Ittehad-E-Millait
Council’s candidate, who came third, polled 14% votes, and may have diverted the vote share of
the winning candidate – also a Muslim, who won by just 1% margin. Communal identity was
certainly a significant factor in how people voted in Uttar Pradesh9. Although in 2014-16, ECI
delisted about a thousand parties, many of whose addresses did not tally with ECI’s records10.
Evidently, that has not precluded innumerable newbies from being set-up after 2018. During the
16th Lok Sabha elections in 2014, of 1689 political parties who took part in the election process,
1652 parties drew blank (98%) and failed to get any seat and only 37 others had their
representation in the last Lok Sabha.11
Rajasthan’s assembly elections in 2018 showed that in a contest with two major parties, a small
difference in vote share could lead to a large difference in seat share. There, the Congress vote
share was just 50 basis points higher than that of the BJP, but resulted in a difference of 26 seats,
with the Congress nearly getting an absolute majority with 99 out of 199 declared seats (polling
in one seat was postponed). It is here that small parties play a major role in fragmenting votes in
a given constituency(ies) even though they do not win and most forfeit their security deposits.
Twenty-seven of the 199 seats in Rajasthan went to these small parties12. In GE-2014, in
9 Scroll: Floating small parties seems to be a big business in Uttar Pradesh dated Mar. 10, 2017 available at
https://scroll.in/article/831307/floating-small-parties-seems-to-be-a-big-business-in-uttar-pradesh on Apr. 27,
2019
10 The Hindu Business Line: More than 1,000 political parties delisted by Election Commission in last two years
dated Jun. 3, 2018 available at https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/more-than-1000-political-
parties-delisted-by-election-commission-in-last-two-years/article24073244.ece on Apr. 27, 2019
11 Organiser: EC launches the process of 'delisting baseless political parties dated Jun. 2, 2018 available at
https://www.organiser.org/Encyc/2018/6/2/EC-delisting-baseless-political-parties-.html , Apr. 27, 2019
12 Shashidhar, Karthik: A party with fewer votes can get more seats and win the election dated Dec. 14, 2018 in
Livemint available at https://www.livemint.com/Politics/ikwQjsFy1DlOq2zm01eFJN/A-party-with-fewer-votes-can-
get-more-seats-and-win-the-elec.html on Apr. 27, 2019

4. Ganganagar, National Unionist Zamindara Party (NUZP), which won two seats in Assembly, got
100,000 votes and was the second runner-up. In Dausa, the National People’s Party (NPEP),
which has four legislators in the Assembly, pushed the Congress candidate to third spot in Dausa
constituency. NPEP’s state president Kirodi Meena returned to the BJP, his parent party, and is
now a Rajya Sabha MP; probable reward for having pushed the INC candidate out in Dausa13.
In 2014, BJP won 282 seats with barely 31% of the popular vote, i.e. a rough average of about 9
Lok Sabha seats for each percentage of votes polled. Assuming that in GE-2019, the small
parties and newbies account for a conservative 3-5% or the popular vote these parties could well
translate their minuscule share to 27-45 seats in the Lok Sabha, the king-makers in the event of a
toss-up between the INC and the BJP. Add a 10-12% redistribution of minority votes to non-BJP
parties could potentially add another 90-108 seats. Likewise, a modest 10-12% shift of the SC &
ST vote away from the BJP could account for another 90-108 seats open to canvassing by
national parties. Given the utter lack of scruples and ethics, particularly amongst leaders of these
small caste/community-based parties, GE-2019 may well see 207-261 seats up for grabs, may be
for ‘prices’ as high as Rs. 25-30 crore each, even far more. No surprises therefore, when SC MP
Udit Raj was shortchanged by the BJP and denied re-election promptly joined the INC. CMS
estimates that GE-2019 could see Rs. 50000 crore ($ 7 billion) being pumped in by participating
parties. About $6.5 billion was spent during the U.S. presidential and congressional races in
2016, according to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks money in American politics. In effect, CMS’s
estimate is about 40% over 2014 (against average inflation rate of 5%) or $ 8/head of India’s
population, 60% of which lives on less than $3 a day14. CMS’s estimate presumably factored in
generous one-off largesse of a mind-boggling Rs. 100-125 crore per winning MP that could
potentially account for Rs. 20700-32625 crore of the combined poll expenses of all parties,
although CMS shied away from such estimates. In a remarkably frank conversation sponsored in
2012 by the Observer Research Foundation, parliamentarians from both INC and the BJP
discussed spending as much as Rs. 20 crore ($3.3m) to win seats where the official limit was Rs.
16 lakh ($26,000)15.
ECI reported that cash seized during the 2014 Lok Sabha election was equivalent to 75% of the
donation received in cash at the Sai Baba temple in Shirdi in 2011. The quantity of
drugs/narcotics seized was roughly the same as the weight of three adult male Asiatic elephants
and a baby elephant put together (an adult male Asiatic elephant weighs nearly 5,000 kg.).
Liquor seizures would easily fill nearly six-and-a-half Olympic-sized swimming pools.
According to the Election Commission of India, as on April 26, 2019, cash and goods (drugs,
liquor, gold, silver etc) worth Rs 3,176.73 crore have been seized across the country. Tamil
Nadu, Gujarat, Delhi, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh are the top five states/UTs in cash distribution.
This boils down to more than Rs 100 crore every day. For drugs/narcotics, the seized quantity
(61,903.93 kg) since March 26 is already 262.64% more than the total quantity seized in 2014.
13 Goswami,. Rakesh: Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Independents, small parties play party poopers in Rajasthan in
Hindustan Times dated Mar. 19, 2019 available at https://www.hindustantimes.com/lok-sabha-elections/lok-
sabha-elections-2019-independents-small-parties-play-party-poopers-in-rajasthan/story-
PPpwP2BEzerg7jJpoq1szI.html on Apr. 27, 2019
14 Economic Times: Why India’s election is among the world’s most expensive from Bloomberg dated Mar. 12,
2019 available at https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/elections/lok-sabha/india/why-indias-election-is-
among-the-worlds-most-expensive/articleshow/68367262.cms on Apr. 27, 2019
15 The Economist: Campaign finance in India -Black money power dated May 4, 2014 available at
https://www.economist.com/banyan/2014/05/04/black-money-power on Apr. 27, 2019

5. Gujarat topped in distribution of psychotrophic substances worth Rs. 524.34 crore, i.e. 44% of
total seizures worth Rs. 1184.60 crore. Tamil Nadu topped the list in distribution of gold and
other precious metals worth Rs. 708.71 crore, i.e. 75% of total seizure worth Rs. 945.78 crore16.
It is also quite likely that a substantial part of such illicit distribution is done by small parties and
newbies without participating in elections. That way, even if they are caught by law enforcers,
the larger ones get away without a blemish.
The dormant parties that seldom, if at all, participate have become the bane of electoral politics
in India. India’s fledgling democracy is already in fast transit to a mockocracy for which all
Indians must collectively bear the cross. Therefore, voters need to overcome their personal
community/caste prejudices and cast their vote in the national interest in the ongoing general
election and avoid voting for very small or newbie parties. (1228 words) Concluded.
The author is a senior public policy analyst and commentator
16 India Today: Daily tracker: How drugs, cash, gold and booze are keeping our netas busy in 2019 Lok Sabha
election dated Apr. 26, 2019 available at https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha-2019/story/campaign-
cash-drugs-alcohol-gold-seizures-election-commission-updates-1501954-2019-04-16 on Apr. 27, 2019