In India much of the known extent of corruption is strongly associated with the bureaucracy, command organs, public sector, and other constitutional and statutory bodies. Further, even civil society institutions such as the media can act both as the conduit of corruption or harbour it as such. All political corruption involves an unfair, and most often unlawful, use of public office to secure a private gain. In the process common good, which a public office is supposed to serve, is appropriated for partisan ends. However, given the fact of competitive electoral democracy, political parties cannot be denied legitimate ways of aggregating their corpus funds, and a candidate is entitled to seek resources for his/her elections. When do these two modes of political funding seriously compromise public purpose?