The Election Commission has removed from the list of registered political parties as many as 255 parties which, it found, were no longer in existence.
Suspecting that these could have been used as fronts for money laundering, the EC has sent the list of delisted parties to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).
The CBDT is expected to examine the finances of the parties as they had enjoyed tax exemptions on account of being in the list of registered parties.
The commission, in its communication to the CBDT dated December 21, informed that it has so far deleted the names of 255 parties maintained by it under Section 29A and paragraph 17 of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968.
The EC had decided to review the cases of registered unrecognised political parties which did not have any candidates for Lok Sabha elections or assembly polls from 2005 to 2015.
The exercise was conducted to check whether these parties continue to exist and function from the registered office address available in the records of the EC.
The verification conducted by chief electoral officers of the states and union territories through their official machinery found that some of the parties are no longer in existence. Some of the addresses given were also found to be false. In the wake of the reports from these officers, the EC decided to delist 255 parties.
As many as 53 of the delisted parties have addresses listed in Delhi, 32 in Tamil Nadu, 28 in Uttar Pradesh and 27 in Maharashtra.
As per the data available with the EC, as of now there are seven national parties, 58 state parties and as many as 1,786 registered unrecognised parties.
