India’s democracy has no shortage of political parties. The more troubling question is whether every organisation carrying the legal identity of a political party is actually functioning as one. More than 2,800 Registered Unrecognised Political Parties are on the Election Commission’s rolls. Many are perfectly legitimate small movements, and electoral insignificance cannot itself be treated as evidence of wrongdoing. But the financial numbers reported by some of these parties point to a problem that goes well beyond the normal untidiness of India’s multi-party democracy.

Consider the scale. One Gujarat-based party reported receiving about Rs 330 crore in donations in 2023-24, although it subsequently fielded only one Lok Sabha candidate. Another party reported donations rising from Rs 216 crore to more than Rs 620 crore in a year, despite also fielding only one candidate. Six such parties together reported roughly Rs 1,700 crore in donations while putting up just 15 candidates in the 2024 general election. The issue is not electoral success. It is whether the political-party framework is being used for purposes that have little to do with politics. That possibility matters because the tax system........

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