Locked offices and millions in donations: Inside India's little-known political parties

Locked offices and millions in donations: Inside India's little-known political parties

Satyawadi Rakshak Party says it spent millions of dollars during 2024 elections - but its office is now shut

There was little to indicate that the locked flat in Anand, in Gujarat in western India, served as the headquarters of a political party.

There was no signboard, no campaign poster, and no obvious evidence of political activity. Yet on paper, the Satyawadi Rakshak Party had recently taken in an extraordinary sum of money.

For the financial year ending in March 2024, official records show that the Gujarat-based party received more than 3.3bn rupees (approx $35m; £25m) in donations. A few months later, when India staged the world’s largest general election, it put forward just one candidate, who lost his deposit.

Its accounts state that 84.8m rupees were spent on election campaigning, while more than 3.16bn rupees were recorded as going to "public welfare".

"We have spent the money on charity but have not maintained records," said Swati Ben Patel, the party's president, who lives in the same residential complex as its registered office.

The party is among more than 2,800 Registered Unrecognised Political Parties, or RUPPs - a large but little-known layer of Indian politics. These parties are legally registered but have not secured enough votes or seats to be recognised at the state or national level.

Some enter elections only occasionally or nominate only a few candidates. Even so, like bigger parties, they can accept donations and benefit from tax exemptions. Donors can also lower their taxable income through qualifying contributions.

The rules are meant to encourage political activity, but tax officials say they can be abused.

A BBC investigation lasting months examined six RUPPs that reported some of the biggest donations in 2023-24. Together, they received about 17bn rupees, even though they fielded only 15 candidates in the 2024 election. None came close to winning.

The mismatch between the sums some parties receive and their limited electoral footprint has prompted growing attention from India's tax authorities.

An internal Income Tax department document seen by the BBC shows officials have been probing suspected misuse of RUPPs since at least 2022.

It lists 55.91bn rupees in suspected fake political donations made by taxpayers seeking tax advantages, along with 6.65bn rupees in foreign transactions. It also points to possible breaches of tax, foreign-funding and election laws.

None of the six parties reviewed by the BBC has been publicly identified in these broader investigations. The BBC has not established that any of them engaged in financial wrongdoing.

But in several instances, it found a notable disconnect between how the organisations were described in their records and what reporters found on the ground.

Some registered offices were shut or seemed inactive. Party officials sometimes said they did not control the finances or could not account for how large amounts had been used.

The BBC also found indications that some of these parties had only a limited political presence. Although their websites sometimes featured photos of door-to-door campaigning, one candidate, Indradevi Hiralal of the Garib Kalyan Party, said she had not gone to her constituency to campaign in 2024. She showed a single poster printed for the election.

There were also signs of official scrutiny. Three parties said they or their officials had faced action from the Income Tax department. At a fourth, a relative of a party official said the family home had been searched. The other two denied any such action.

Tax authorities in Bihar, Gujarat and Delhi, along with the Central Board of Direct Taxes, did not answer questions about whether any of the six parties had been investigated or searched.

Among the six parties, Aam Janmat Party reported the highest amount of money.

Established in Patna in 2020, it reported no individual donations above 20,000 rupees - the threshold at which donors must be named to the Election Commission - during its first two years.

Then its finances changed sharply.

Aam Janmat Party reported 2.16bn rupees in donations in 2022-23. The next year, that figure almost tripled to more than 6.2bn rupees - more than twice the roughly 2.8bn rupees received by the Indian National Congress, the country's main opposition party.

Aam Janmat Party officials were unable to explain the sudden increase.

Aam Janmat Party fielded only one candidate in the 2024 general election. He won only a tiny share of the vote and lost his deposit.

The BBC traced its founding president, Anamika Paswan, to Patna city in Bihar state. Paswan, now a vice-president of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, said she had left Aam Janmat in 2022.

When reporters later asked for documents about her departure, Paswan was absent. Her husband produced what he said was her resignation letter and another document saying the party had shifted hundreds of miles west to Ahmedabad in Gujarat state with Gaurav Mishra as its president.

But the office at its registered address there was shut.

Its treasurer, Dharmendra Vaishnav, said by phone that Aam Janmat had "shut operations". He said he knew nothing about its finances and referred questions to Mishra, who did not respond to repeated calls and messages.

The party's listed bank account, however, could still accept money. The BBC sent a small donation and the payment went through.

The registered office of the Garib Kalyan Party was also closed.

It reported 1.38bn rupees in donations in 2023-24, but fielded only three candidates in the general election.

At the home of its president Neeraj Kumar Kshatriya, his mother said she knew little about the party. But she remembered Income Tax department officials searching the family home, though she did not know the reason.

Researchers who follow political finance say the pattern raises questions about what these parties do with the money they receive.

"These parties are not electorally active, yet they are getting such huge funds and they are spending the money as well," said Shelly Mahajan, a researcher at the Association for Democratic Reforms, an election watchdog.

But tracking such transactions can be hard. Tax officials told the BBC that money can move through a network of taxpayers, political parties and intermediaries, making it difficult to see where it originated and where it finally ended up.

The BBC could not establish that any donations to the six parties had been routed back in this manner.

It did, however, trace two people listed as donors to the New India United Party who said they had claimed tax benefits on their donations.

One Ahmedabad resident confirmed giving 500,000 rupees.

The other said he had donated on a friend's recommendation. "I did it as a way to save tax, and have declared the same," he said, adding that the authorities had not contacted him.

Three tax officials in Ahmedabad, Delhi and Patna, speaking anonymously, said chartered accountants and other middlemen can link taxpayers seeking deductions with parties willing to accept donations.

In some cases, they said, intermediaries can also wield substantial control over party finances.

Surender Tiwari said that was what happened at his Swatantrata Abhivyakti Party, which reported 2.19bn rupees in donations in 2023-24.

Although he was the president, Tiwari said he did not control the party's money. Its chartered accountant handled the finances and gave him campaign funds, he said.

"The chartered accountant gave me some money for the election campaign," Tiwari said. "He would then show videos of the campaign to clients who wanted to get tax relief through donations."

Tiwari said the party received a notice from the Income Tax department in July and accused its chartered accountant Mayur Singh of keeping him "in the dark".

Singh denied any wrongdoing. He said his role was limited to preparing audit reports that parties must file with the Election Commission, though he acknowledged working for several of the parties examined by the BBC.

"Try to understand, it's the same people behind these parties," he said, without giving further detail.

Concerns about India's little-known parties go beyond money. The Election Commission has also been working to remove inactive parties from its official list.

Last year, it delisted more than 800 RUPPs that had not fielded a candidate in six years. But it cannot cancel a party's legal registration, which limits the impact of such action.

The BBC asked the commission whether tax authorities had shared information about suspected financial irregularities involving RUPPs, including the six examined. It did not reply.

As scrutiny increases, the task for authorities will be to determine who controls these parties, where their money comes from, and how it is ultimately spent.