What is Section 29A?
- Registration of political parties is governed by the provisions of Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. A party seeking registration under the said Section with the Commission has to submit an application to the Commission within a period of 30 days following the date of its formation as per guidelines prescribed by the Election Commission of India in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 324 of the Commission of India and Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
- As per existing guidelines, the applicant association is inter-alia asked to publish proposed name of the party in two national daily newspapers and two local daily newspapers, on two days in same news papers, for inviting objections, if any, with regard to the proposed registration of the party before the Commission within 30 days from such publication.
- In order to enable applicants to track the status of the application, the Commission has launched a “Political Parties Registration Tracking Management System (PPRTMS)”. The salient feature in the PPRTMS is that the applicant, who is applying for party registration from 1st January, 2020 will be able to track the progress of his/her application and will get status updates through SMS and e-mail.
- Registered and recognized parties
- The registered but unrecognised political parties do not have the privilege of contesting elections on a fixed symbol of their own. They have to choose from a list of ‘free symbols’ issued by the poll panel.
- Criteria for recognized state party
- At General Elections or Legislative Assembly elections, the party has won 3% of seats in the legislative assembly of the State (subject to a minimum of 3 seats), OR
- At a Lok Sabha General Elections, the party has won 1 Lok sabha seat for every 25 Lok Sabha seats allotted for the State, OR
- At a General Election to Lok Sabha or Legislative Assembly, the party has polled a minimum of 6% of votes in a State and in addition it has won 1 Lok Sabha or 2 Legislative Assembly seats, OR
- At a General Election to Lok Sabha or Legislative Assembly, the party has polled 8% of votes in a State.
