{"id":341706,"date":"2025-06-30T17:37:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T12:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=341706"},"modified":"2025-06-30T17:37:40","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T12:07:40","slug":"election-commission-moves-to-delist-inactive-political-parties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/election-commission-moves-to-delist-inactive-political-parties\/","title":{"rendered":"Election Commission moves to delist inactive political parties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: The post Election Commission moves to delist inactive political parties has been created, based on the article \u201c<strong>Why is the ECI de-listing political parties?<\/strong>\u201d published in \u201c<strong>The Hindu<\/strong>\u201d on 30th June 2025<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPSC Syllabus Topic:<\/strong> <strong>GS Paper <\/strong><strong>2-<\/strong>Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong>: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has initiated action to <strong>de-list 345 Registered Unrecognised Political Parties (RUPPs)<\/strong> that have not contested any election since 2019 and could not be located. This move addresses concerns about inactive parties misusing legal and financial privileges.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Understanding Registered Unrecognised Political Parties (RUPPs)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Legal Foundation of Political Parties: <\/strong>The right to form political parties comes under <strong>Article 19(1)(c)<\/strong> of the Constitution. <strong>Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act (RP Act), 1951<\/strong> governs their registration. Parties must commit to the Constitution, socialism, secularism, democracy, and national unity.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Registration Process and Internal Democracy: <\/strong>A party must submit its constitution within <strong>30 days of formation<\/strong>. The ECI ensures it includes provisions for <strong>internal democracy<\/strong>, such as regular elections for office bearers.<\/li>\n<li><strong> Benefits Enjoyed by RUPPs<\/strong><br \/>\nRUPPs receive:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Tax exemption<\/strong> under <strong>Section 13A of the Income Tax Act, 1961<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Common election symbol<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Permission for 20 star campaigners<\/strong> during elections<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Compliance and Accountability Issues<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Donor Transparency and Reporting: <\/strong>RUPPs must report donations above \u20b920,000 annually. Donations over \u20b92,000 must be through <strong>cheques or bank transfers<\/strong>. <strong>Non-compliance removes tax benefits<\/strong> under <strong>Section 29C of the RP Act<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong> Low Electoral Participation: <\/strong>There are <strong>over 2,800 RUPPs<\/strong>, but only about <strong>750 contested the 2024 general elections<\/strong>. The rest are often termed <strong>\u2018<\/strong><strong>letter pad parties<\/strong><strong>\u2019<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>ECI<\/strong><strong>\u2019<\/strong><strong>s Limited Power to De-register: <\/strong>In <em>Indian National Congress vs Institute of Social Welfare (2002)<\/em>, the <strong>Supreme Court ruled that ECI cannot de-register<\/strong> parties for non-compliance, except in cases of <strong>fraud<\/strong> or <strong>disloyalty to the Constitution<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Current Clean-up Measures by the ECI<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Delisting of Non-Existent and Inactive RUPPs: <\/strong>In a <strong>March 2024 notification (updated till May 2025)<\/strong>, the ECI listed <strong>281 de-listed and 217 inactive RUPPs<\/strong>. These were found non-existent or had outdated records since <strong>2014<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong> Impact of Delisting: <\/strong>Such parties lose access to <strong>common symbols and tax exemptions<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Action on 345 RUPPs: <\/strong>The ECI found these parties non-functional and untraceable since <strong>2019<\/strong>, and has asked State CEOs to issue <strong>show-cause notices<\/strong> before delisting.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Need for Legislative Reforms<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Recommendations for De-registration Powers: <\/strong>The <strong>Law Commission (255th report, 2015)<\/strong> recommended <strong>de-registration<\/strong> for parties inactive for 10 years. The ECI&#8217;s <strong>2016 electoral reform<\/strong> memorandum also supported this.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ensuring Inner-Party Democracy: <\/strong>Most parties lack internal democracy. Though ECI cannot directly intervene, the <strong>Law Commission (170th and 255th reports)<\/strong> proposed <strong>RP Act amendments<\/strong> to address this issue.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Question for practice:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Discuss<\/strong> the challenges faced by the Election Commission of India in regulating Registered Unrecognised Political Parties and the reforms suggested to address them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The post Election Commission moves to delist inactive political parties has been created, based on the article \u201cWhy is the ECI de-listing political parties?\u201d published in \u201cThe Hindu\u201d on 30th June 2025 UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 2-Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/election-commission-moves-to-delist-inactive-political-parties\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Election Commission moves to delist inactive political parties<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230],"tags":[212,225,10498],"class_list":["post-341706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-polity","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}