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An investigation by The Quint has revealed that the much-hailed electoral bonds, which were meant to usher in an era of taint-free financing for political parties, carry a secret number “visible on the top-right corner of the original document showing fluorescence, when examined under Ultra Violet (UV) Light.”
The saga of electoral bonds started with the Budget Speech of the Finance Minister in the Lok Sabha on 1 February 2017. The speech had a section titled “Transparency in Electoral Funding”, and this is what Arun Jaitley said:
“164. India is the world's largest democracy. Political parties are an essential ingredient of a multi-party Parliamentary democracy. Even 70 years after Independence, the country has not been able to evolve a transparent method of funding political parties which is vital to the system of free and fair elections. An attempt was made in the past by amending the provisions of the Representation of Peoples Act, the Companies Act and the Income Tax Act to incentivise donations by individuals, partnership firms, HUFs and companies to political parties. Both the donor and the donee were granted exemption from payment of tax if the accounts were transparently maintained and returns were filed with the competent authorities. Additionally, a list of donors who contributed more than Rs 20,000/- to any party in cash or cheque is required to be maintained. The situation has only marginally improved since these provisions were brought into force. Political parties continue to receive most of their funds through anonymous donations which are shown in cash.
165. An effort, therefore, requires to be made to cleanse the system of political funding in India. Donors have also expressed reluctance in donating by cheque or other transparent methods as it would disclose their identity and entail adverse consequences. I, therefore, propose the following scheme as an effort to cleanse the system of funding of political parties:
The same day, when asked about electoral bonds in the customary post-Budget media interaction, Jaitley said the following:
“Every recognised political party will have to notify one bank account in advance to the Election Commission and these can be redeemed in only that account, in a very short span of time. These bonds will be ‘bearer’ ones, to keep the donor anonymous (marked bold to add emphasis).”
It was pointed out that it would present not the slightest difficulty to the ruling party (whichever it may be) to get information from the State Bank of India as soon as someone purchased an electoral bond. And as soon as this information reached the political party in power, it would not be at all difficult for that party to get in touch with the buyer and “persuade” him/her to donate the bonds to the ruling party.
Even without electoral bonds being in place, it is worth noting the increase in the reported income of the seven national parties between financial years 2015-16 and 2016-17.
The share of individual national political parties in the total amount received by all the seven national political parties was as follows:
How these figures will be once the trails of electoral bonds can be followed based on ‘invisible’ numbers printed on them, is anyone’s guess.
Even without the ‘invisible’ serial numbers, the potential for damage that the scheme of electoral reforms could do to the political health of the country is immense. The reason being, while introducing electoral bonds, the government also got the Parliament to approve two key amendments to the Companies Act.
This has been done by removing proviso to sub-section (1) of Section 182 of the Companies Act 2013.
The second is even more startling concerning transparency and opacity. Sub-section (3) of Section 182 of the Companies Act 2013 requires that a company making donations to political parties shall disclose “particulars of the total amount contributed and the name of the party to which such amount has been contributed” in its profit and loss account.
Adding even more intriguing features to an already dangerous instrument is obviously not a healthy sign at all. It is possibly a signal that the government wants to ensure, at any cost, that the ruling party has all the information on who donates to whom, and the funding for Opposition parties is reduced as much as possible.
So much for “Transparency in Electoral Funding”, promised by the finance minister on 1 February 2017, in the ‘temple of democracy’ – the Lok Sabha!
Jagdeep S Chhokar is a former Professor, Dean, and Director-in-charge of IIM, Ahmedabad. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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Published: 12 Apr 2018,10:35 PM IST