NEW DELHI: Even as the political discourse in the country centres around black money, leading national parties led by the Congress have come together and written to the Election Commission objecting to its transparency guidelines.Specifically, the parties have opposed disclosure of anonymous unaccounted receipts and demanded that the EC circular on the issue be withdrawn. The total income of these parties, reluctant to abide by disclosure norms, has been close to Rs 1,000 crore in 2012-13.The ruling BJP has not yet responded.All these parties, including the BJP, have collected more than Rs 5,800 crore in the last ten years but they refuse to reveal the names of all their contributors. Funds from unnamed donors constitute up to 90% of total income of many of these parties (100% in case of the BSP).The Congress has challenged the Election Commission's (EC) powers to ask parties to record each donation less than Rs 20,000, audit the same and report it to the poll watchdog. Motilal Vora, veteran Congress leader and treasurer of the party, has written to EC saying it must refer this matter to the law ministry as the commission is not competent to ask for names of each donor and make it mandatory for parties to get their entire account audited and submitted to the commission.The EC had in a directive issued on August 29 asked these parties to follow certain transparency guidelines. They require political parties to maintain names of individuals, companies and entities making donations, even if less than Rs 20,000, except petty sums donated by the public during rallies, and deposit the amount collected into the party's authorized bank accounts within a week of receipt. What has also rattled these parties is the fact that the EC had asked these parties to make all future payments exceeding Rs 20,000 through cheque and draft only. Implementation of this guideline was intended to bring down use of black money in elections.Vora has demanded another round of consultation with political parties and said that "the matter needs to be referred to the law ministry for taking appropriate action." The EC has repeatedly written to the law ministry, both during UPA-1and UPA-2, to amend the Representation of People's Act and strictly enforce these transparency guidelines, but every time it had asked the law ministry to bring in an amendment in Parliament, the government referred the issue to the law commission and buried it.Interestingly, the submission made by Laloo Yadav's RJD on the same date as the Congress is a carbon copy of what Vora has told the EC seeking withdrawal of the EC circular. JD(U)'s Sharad Yadav has asked the commission to withdraw the guidelines immediately and instead refer the matter to Parliament for the lawmakers to decide."The present circular may be withdrawn and the matter may be referred to Parliament for due consideration as the guidelines are not legally tenable and are liable to be set aside on judicial review," the JD(U) president suggested in his communication to EC.Interestingly the BSP has said, "neither the donors nor the party workers receiving the funds are literate enough to record each and every transaction of such petty amounts."The BSP, while demanding withdrawal of the EC guidelines argued in favour of not disclosing its donors saying: "The donations are so small in today's economic set up that the cost of recording the transaction will exceed even the value of contributions received." The total contribution of BSP in 2012-13 was around Rs 88 crore and more than Rs 550 crore in the last ten years.