On Tuesday, 29 September 2026, counsel for the Election Commission of India told Justice Saurabh Banerjee of the Delhi High Court that there are “certain apprehensions pertaining to national security” with registering Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De) as a political party. The outfit is led by the jailed Khadoor Sahib MP, Bhai Amritpal Singh. It applied for registration in January 2025, heard nothing for seventeen months, and went to court in June 2026. Its counsel, senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, asked for a decision by the end of November so that the party can seek an election symbol by December.
The judge declined to go into merits. He wanted a timeline, and warned that with more than one outfit in the queue, an out-of-turn decision would be hara-kiri. The Commission must tell the court by 1 October, tomorrow, when it proposes to decide. Otherwise the court will pass orders.
That is the news. The context is what matters. With the Punjab Assembly’s term ending in March 2027, this is no longer an application sitting in a file. It is a pre-election question: whether the one new Panthic formation to have won a Lok Sabha seat in 2024 goes into 2027 as a party or as a crowd of independents.
What a Certificate Buys
Think of registration as a birth certificate. The child has been born; the nursing home knows it, the neighbours know it, and in 2024 Khadoor Sahib voted for it. Without the certificate, however, it cannot be enrolled in school, draw a ration or claim an inheritance. An unregistered party exists, holds rallies and may even win, but the law does not recognise it. Consider what the certificate, issued under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, actually confers.
A symbol, or at least a place in the queue. Under Paragraph 10B of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968, a registered unrecognised party may ask for a common symbol for all its candidates at a State Assembly election, provided it sets up candidates in at least five per cent of the constituencies. In Punjab’s House of 117, that means six candidates. The request may be made only in the period beginning six months before the House’s term expires. That is why Punjab’s window is already open, and why the November date is not a whim. The concession is available for two general elections, with a fresh application each time.
Even without a common symbol, registration matters constituency by constituency. Under Paragraph 12(3)(a) of the same Order, where several candidates choose the same free symbol and only one of them has been set up by a registered unrecognised party while the rest are independents, the Returning Officer must allot that symbol to the party’s candidate “and to no one else.” An unregistered outfit’s nominees are independents in law. They join the general lottery of buckets, bangles and batteries, and a voter in Tarn Taran must be taught a different symbol from a voter in Moga.
Money, lawfully raised. Section 29B of the 1951 Act allows a registered party to accept voluntary contributions from any person or company other than a Government company. Foreign sources are barred by the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010. Section 182 of the Companies Act, 2013 allows companies to contribute to political parties, and under the Electoral Trusts Scheme, 2013, electoral trusts may pass their funds only to registered parties.
The tax law follows the same line. Under Section 13A of the Income-tax Act, 1961, carried into Section 12 and Schedule VIII of the Income-tax Act, 2025 from 1 April 2026, a registered party’s income from house property, other sources and capital gains, and all its voluntary contributions, are excluded from its total income. The exemption depends on five conditions:
audited books of account;
a record of every contribution above ₹20,000 with the donor’s name and address;
no cash donation above ₹2,000 from any one donor;
the income-tax return filed by the due date;
the annual contribution report filed with the Commission under Section 29C of the 1951 Act, failing which the party forfeits all tax relief.
The Congress learned how strictly these conditions are enforced when the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, in July 2025, upheld the denial of its exemption for 2018–19 on ₹199 crore of income.
Donors, too, benefit only when they give to a registered party. A company may deduct its contribution under Section 80GGB of the 1961 Act, now Section 136 of the 2025 Act. Any other assessee may deduct it under Section 80GGC, now Section 137. In both cases, the contribution must be made otherwise than in cash, to a party registered under Section 29A or to an electoral trust. The deduction is available to individuals who remain on the old tax regime, and to companies not on the concessional rate.
A gift to an unregistered outfit earns no deduction under either regime, and nothing obliges the outfit to report it to the Commission. Its war chest stays small or goes underground. Neither outcome serves the cause of clean elections that the Commission rightly champions.
Spending that does not count against the candidate. Rule 90 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 caps an Assembly candidate’s expenditure in Punjab at forty lakh rupees. Section 77 of the 1951 Act, however, counts only the expenditure a candidate or election agent incurs or authorises, so a party’s general propaganda for its programme falls outside that account. Clause (a) of Explanation 1 to Section 77(1) also excludes the travel expenses of party leaders propagating the party’s programme. Explanation 2 caps the number of such leaders, the “star campaigners” of popular usage, at forty for a recognised party and twenty for any other party. A group of independents has no such cover. Every rally, hoarding and helicopter is charged to one candidate’s forty lakh.
Discipline after the count. This is the benefit least discussed, and the most important for the stability of the next House. Under Paragraph 2(1)(b) of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution, a legislator elected on a party ticket who votes against the party whip may be disqualified. Independents follow no whip. Paragraph 2(2) of the same Schedule also disqualifies an independent who joins any political party after the election.
So a bloc of independents cannot later become a party, even if the Commission registers that party the week after the results. It can only lend its support, one vote at a time, to whoever asks most persuasively. The Commission’s reluctance would therefore produce legislators more open to bargaining, not less. Anyone worried about Punjab’s stability should prefer a party that is visible, whipped and answerable to one that is dispersed and for hire.
The Checklist, Not the Character Certificate
What does the law ask of a new party? I have discharged statutory duties under the election law at every level, from presiding officer to District Election Officer. The requirements have always been a checklist, not a character certificate.
Under Section 29A of the 1951 Act, any association or body of individual citizens of India calling itself a political party may apply within thirty days of its formation. The application, signed by the party’s president or general secretary, must give its name, headquarters, office-bearers, membership and units, with a copy of its constitution. The Commission’s guidelines add:
a processing fee of ₹10,000;
at least a hundred members who are registered electors, each with an affidavit that they belong to no other registered party;
publication of the proposed name and address in two national and two local dailies, inviting objections within thirty days;
a party constitution that provides for periodic organisational elections, fixed terms for office-bearers, and procedures for amendment, merger and dissolution.
Only one requirement goes to allegiance, and Parliament wrote it into Section 29A(5) itself. The party’s constitution must contain a specific provision that it bears true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, and to the principles of socialism, secularism and democracy, and that it will uphold the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India. That declaration is the statutory test of loyalty. Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De) has given it.
Under Section 29A(7), the Commission then considers the particulars “a