HYDERABAD: Shramajeevi Party, Anarakshit Party, Future India Party, Anna YSR Congress Party and Prem Janata Dal. Heard of them before? Probably not. But come December, a candidate belonging to one of these parties could be contesting in the Assembly elections from your constituency. In fact, as many as 80 unrecognised registered parties with such interesting names will be testing the waters in Telangana. In Greater Hyderabad alone, candidates from 40 such parties will be contesting the polls. The names are not the only interesting aspect about these parties.
Experts suggest that the founders of these parties could have one of two ulterior motives. One, the predictable motive, is to divide the vote share of a targeted group in a particular constituency — a time tested strategy in Indian elections. The other motive, the knowledge of which will perhaps come as a surprise to the uninitiated, is to earn money by getting bigger political parties to pay them to withdraw nominations. Speaking to Express, M Padmanabha Reddy, secretary of Forum for Good Governance, says this ‘scheme’ has taken the form of a sinister business of sorts.
“Let us assume one of these parties fields candidates from all constituencies in a region. A major political party can pay them some money to step out of the race entirely,” he explains. He also points out to the fact a few parties could be getting foreign funding. Reddy’s statements are backed up the Election Commission which admits to both these issues. Officials in the EC also observe how these parties do not even manage to get votes numbering in the double-digits.