When it comes to making financial account public, Congress and BJP both drag their feet. Both are yet to submit their expenditure report for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the deadline for which expired two months ago.

As per rules, all parties have to submit their detailed expenditure report to the EC within 75 days of the completion of assembly election and within 90 days in case of Lok Sabha election. Lok Sabha election got over on May 19 this year; hence, it's been 150 days since then.

Other parties — NCP, Communist Party of India, BSP, Trinamool Congress, Shiv Sena, MNS, Biju Janta Dal, Bahujan Vikas Aghadi and DMK — submitted their documents to the EC before the deadline; these were made public by the EC on its website.

While BJP leaders were unavailable for comment, state Congress spokesperson Al-Nasser Zakaria said, "Most state units had already submitted the report to the headquarters. There must be some delay in Delhi."

The expenditure reports give audited report of every detail of funds received in cash or cheque or draft by the party, along with all expenses, including those for candidates, from the announcement of elections to the declaration of results.

For instance, MNS had received close to Rs4 crore during 2014 Lok Sabha polls of which Rs3.5 crore had been spent, says the report submitted by the party to EC. Shiv Sena received Rs11.7 crore and spent Rs12.2 crore. NCP, on the other hand, had got a whopping Rs63 crore and spent the whole amount, show the documents made available by the party to EC.

This is not the first time BJP and Congress have defaulted. They had defaulted on filing expenditure report for the assembly election of Karnataka and didn't submit it for nearly a year. Karnataka went to poll in May 2013 and the deadline for submission of the report expired on July 27, 2013. After several reminders issued to them by EC, they submitted the report in July and September 2014.

BJP's expenditure report for Rajasthan, Mizoram, Delhi, MP, and Chhattisgarh elections held in November 2013, deadlines for which expired on February 20, 2014, is also pending.

Transparency in poll funding has been a long pending issue, with ECI seeking to bring in stringent laws to monitor the same. "In the US, expenditure details are disclosed by parties on a daily basis," said an EC official.

Talks are on for a cap on expenditure too.

A set of guidelines issued by the EC under Article 324 of the Constitution, August 2014, (which are effective from October 1) ask all political parties to declare cash donations received by them, irrespective of the amount. However, the guidelines have no legal backing. Though there is an election expenditure limit set by the EC for candidates, there is no such cap for parties.

All political parties in India are required to maintain the accounts and submit the annual report, along with the donors' contribution report duly verified by a chartered accountant as required under section 139 of the Income Tax Act, 1961. This is also subject to the provisions of sections 298 and 29C of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

Major parties also avoid submitting annual and contribution reports. Congress, BJP and many others haven't submitted their respective reports for the financial year 2012-13 so far. However, EC can't do much except issue reminders.

RTI Activist Vihar Durve slammed the parties for failing the people. "These parties accuse each other of corruption but don't come clean on funds collected from people. There must be provisions in the RP Act to penalise them," he said.

As per existing rules, only contributions in excess of Rs20,000 are to be disclosed before the EC with the donor's name. Most parties, hence, claim all their contributions are less than Rs20,000.