Beat the taxman: Start a party, have a party

In 2004, Pramod Tiwari, who got 126 votes from Delhi Sadar constituency, found a place in India’s electoral history. His Parmarth Party claimed to have spent Rs2.02 lakh on each vote; the costliest set of votes in India!

With no qualifications required to run a political party, and several facilities available, many parties have cropped up of late, especially since 2003, when the law allowed political donors to claim income-tax exemption. This exemption is available even to unrecognised parties such as the Parmarth Party, which collected Rs2.55 crore from 2003 to 2007.

(The parties have to submit affidavits to the Election Commission (EC) declaring their donations. DNA has obtained these data using the Right to Information Act.) In 2006, in letters to the prime minister and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami had raised concerns about such parties. He named the Parmarth Party and Rashtriya Vikas Party (RVP) as examples.

Over the past five years, the Parmarth Party has been regularly shifting its office while collecting huge sums. In 2007, it changed its name to Matra Bhakta Party. Little is known about it. What is known is that it fielded Tiwari, whose 126 votes came at a huge cost.

At the party’s Kamla Nagar office, DNA found chartered accountant SB Gupta running his company. Gupta refused say much, except: “The party office used to be here a few years back.”

Several kilometres away, near Delhi, MP Sharma leads the RVP, hoping to “rescue and restore India”. Over Rs7.55 crore has flowed into his inconsequential movement in five years. Doctors, businessmen, and others have donated lakhs.

Despite the money and his “dreams”, the retired air force man is reluctant to meet the media. He sounded busy on the phone: “Newspaper… achha haan, bataiye, kya chahiye? I am quite far from my residence and will return late at night. I won’t be able to meet you even tomorrow as I am busy with election work.”

A couple of hours later, we tried our luck at his residence, the entrance to which is plastered with party posters. Sharma opened the door! He was clearly flustered. “I am having lunch,” he said, trying to shoo us away. We persisted, and he spoke about life in the air force and how he started three detective and security agencies (Sharma & Company, Sharma Detectives, and SPIS Ltd) after retirement, and a political party (RVP), of which he is ‘national president’.  

He claimed to be handling 90 cases of the North Delhi Power Limited (NDPL) and 27 of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).

“I am so busy these days, I have had to tell clients to wait till the elections are over,” Sharma said.

He registered the RVP in December 2002. “We stand fifth in terms of support base, after the Congress, BJP, BSP and Samajwadi Party. It is only (a matter of) time before we enter Parliament,” he said. He claimed that his party has 3.5 lakh active workers in several states, including Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

When it comes to donations, Sharma replied confidently, “I don’t care when people say Sharma has collected crores in donations. People who have seen the paperwork are surprised and have told me, ‘Sharmaji, nobody can point out a single fault with these documents’. Everybody knows that big parties use money to get into Parliament. Why point a finger at me?”

When we began our hunt for Sharma, a neighbourhood chartered accountant, Prabha Kant Malhotra (name changed on request), had told us, “We heard he stood in the last general election from Aligarh. People know him not as a leader but as a businessman.” Malhotra is a neighbour of Sharma and couldn’t believe that his party had mopped up Rs7.5 crore in donations.

A few years ago, Sharma had approached Malhotra for donations. “He had requested me, “Malhotraji, you are a chartered accountant, can you arrange donations for our party? I told him I will let him know, after which I did not keep in touch with him.”