The Electoral Bonds Scheme has been exposed as a cosy arrangement for mutual benefit between India’s ruling party and business houses and protected from public scrutiny.
After the Supreme Court’s historic though belated judgment scrapping the scheme, industry platforms representing many of the donors had the audacity to demand a reversal on the grounds that it would affect national interests and scare off business investments in India if names were revealed.
In a coordinated move, the government counsel present asked the Supreme Court for a virtual gag on any reference to the revelations in the election campaign. This was refused.
The government tried another method too. After the corporate-ruling party nexus started getting wide exposure on social media, the Narendra Modi government notified the Fact Check Unit under the Information Technology Rules, 2021 giving jurisdiction to the Press Information Bureau to flag “fake, false or misleading online content related to the government” on the basis of complaints received.
This outright assault on freedom of speech was fortunately stayed by the Supreme Court or we would have had an election campaign where every speech against the government would have been flagged as “misleading” and prohibited. All this after it got the State Bank of India to tell a blatant lie in court that it required at least three months more — that is, till after the elections — to get the details. In fact, the exercise took less than a week.
The ruling party strained every nerve to conceal the reality of its corrupt nexus with business houses. It is also significant that the RSS has openly supported the scheme, defending it as an experiment. The last decade has seen many lucrative donations through the corporate social responsibility (CSR) route to “social and cultural” NGOs reportedly linked to the RSS.
The biggest enemy of a corporate-ruling party nexus is the light of transparency. A fundamental right of a voter is access to information about political parties and candidates to enable informed choice. The BJP led the move to subvert India’s electoral system by legalising anonymous, limitless donations. It introduced new levels of state patronage masking a quid pro quo with business houses, under the mask of a Modi guarantee of “ease of business”. It took donations from business houses which had been raided for corrupt practices and then mysteriously, after the donations, the cases were frozen. Central agencies were suborned by the ruling party for this purpose.
Parliament had been informed in March 2022 that the raids and searches on “suspects” had seen a 27-fold increase under the Modi government. There were 3,010 search operations (raids) conducted by the ED, but chargesheets were filed in just 888 cases while the court convicted 23 of the accused. The gap between these three stages can be better understood in light of the electoral bond data revealed. This government has proved to be the most corrupt — the opposite of Modi’s claim of “na khaunga, na khane doonga”.
While parties running state governments have received donations through electoral bonds, the BJP has been the biggest beneficiary with Rs 8,252 crore in its kitty, around 50 per cent of the total. The point is that it is the BJP which introduced such a scheme, despite the protest of the opposition parties and even overriding the disapproval of the Reserve Bank of India and the Election Commission.
It smuggled in this scheme in the guise of a Money Bill in 2017 so that it could avoid a vote in the Rajya Sabha where it did not at the time have a majority.
The issue of funding in India’s electoral system has been identified as an area that requires urgent reform. Starting with the Indrajit Gupta-led committee for electoral reforms in 1998, several committees have suggested state funding of elections. State funding should be seriously considered if a “level playing field” is to be established.
Also, the present system of no limits on political party expenditures in elections gives a huge advantage to rich parties such as the BJP. There should and must be a limit on such expenditure just as there is for candidates.
The CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury filed a petition on behalf of the party before the Supreme Court. It was the only political party which could file such a petition because it had taken a decision to oppose this scheme at every level.
Thus, unlike other parties, the CPI(M) did not open an electoral bond account with the SBI. It is this — opposition to the corrupt scheme in policy and practice — that established the bona fides of the CPI(M) as a petitioner and why its petition was accepted by the Supreme Court.
However, the bitter truth remains that electoral politics in India is fast becoming the exclusive domain of the rich.
A system which is weighted against the working people as candidates for elections because they do not have the money to compete is a travesty of democracy. These are issues that India needs to consider.
The writer is a member of the CPI(M) Politburo
A fundamental right of a voter is access to information about political parties and candidates to enable informed choice
9
5
23.03.2024
The Electoral Bonds Scheme has been exposed as a cosy arrangement for mutual benefit between India’s ruling party and business houses and protected from public scrutiny.
After the Supreme Court’s historic though belated judgment scrapping the scheme, industry platforms representing many of the donors had the audacity to demand a reversal on the grounds that it would affect national interests and scare off business investments in India if names were revealed.
In a coordinated move, the government counsel present asked the Supreme Court for a virtual gag on any reference to the revelations in the election campaign. This was refused.
The government tried another method too. After the corporate-ruling party nexus started getting wide exposure on social media, the Narendra Modi government notified the Fact Check Unit under the Information Technology Rules, 2021 giving jurisdiction to the Press Information Bureau to flag “fake, false or misleading online content related to the government” on the basis of complaints received.
This outright assault on freedom of speech was fortunately stayed by the Supreme Court or we would have had an election campaign where every speech against the government would have been flagged as “misleading” and prohibited. All........
© Indian Express
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