Invitation to Corruption?

Context

Keeping in view the objectives of improving the political funding system in the country and moving towards a cashless economy, the present government started the electoral bond scheme. The plan announced during the 2017 general budget is aimed at accounting for the funds received by all major political parties.

What is Electoral Bond?

• If we talk about Bond, then it is a debt security. The mention of election bond was first made in the General Budget of 2017.
• In fact, it was said that the RBI will issue a bond and the person who wants to donate to political parties will buy bonds from the bank first, and then whatever political party they want to donate can give bonds as donations is.
• The political parties will sell the sale of these electoral bonds to the authorized bank and during the validity period, the amount will be deposited in proportion to Bond's purchase in bank accounts of political parties.
• Significantly, the election bond will be like a promissory note on which no interest will be given. It is worth mentioning that the election bond can be purchased only through check or e-payment.

Is Election Bond Plan Important?

• The traditional system of political funding depends on donations. These big or small donations come from a wide range of sources like political activists, supporters, small businessmen and even big industrialists.
• The objective of the election bond is to stop the movement of cash and secret funds given to political parties.
• When the amount of cash is given in cash, then there is no information about the source of wealth, about the donator and where the money was spent. Therefore, transparency in the present system will come from election bond.
• Electoral bonds will be available for a thousand rupees, ten thousand rupees, one lakh rupees, one million rupees and one crore rupees. These bonds will be sold for four months of the year-January, April, July and October for 10 days.
• During this time they can be bought. In the year of the general election, facility of buying bonds is done for 30 days.

• Donors will be able to donate these bonds to any party by buying from SBI branches. Donors can donate to the same political party registered with the Election Commission, those parties have secured at least 1 percent of the total votes in the last elections.
• The amount of money received from Bond will be credited to the authorized bank account of the concerned party. The validity of the electoral bond will be only 15 days. The purpose behind keeping Bond valid for a short period is to prevent the misuse of it, as well as curb the use of black money in providing finance to political parties.
• Through this, transparency can be ensured. On one hand, the bank will be aware of who bought an election bond and secondly, the buyer of the bond should also mention it in his balance sheet.

What is the situation

• Donations offered online or through check are an ideal way to donate political parties. However, these methods have not been very popular in India because the identity of the donor is revealed in these ways.
• The concept of electoral bond planning is bringing enough transparency in the political funding system. A donor can buy election bonds from a specified bank only by a banking instrument. After which the buyer must disclose the number of political bonds he has purchased in his accounts.
• The failure of this plan is clear and its results are extremely harmful. High court judges, former election commissioners, journalists, etc. are getting criticisms from many people.

Drawbacks

• There are many black sides of this plan because there is no fixed limit for the expenditure of the parties and the Election Commission can not monitor it. It is difficult to ensure that the amount is coming is black money or white, because the donor is confidential.
• Even foreign money can come and any financially poor company can donate money. In these circumstances, it appears that in the first place, this scheme has not really been successful in achieving its initial objective.
• The shocking fact is that the said scheme facilitates the complete oblivion of the donor and neither is the buyer of Bond nor is the disclosure of the identity of the political party receiving the donation.
• Hence it can be that shareholder of a company is unaware of the donation given by his company. With this, it can also be said that the voters will not even know how and through whom funding has been given to any political party.
• In addition to this, the condition of being in existence has been removed at least three years before donating to any donor company. This condition prevents black money from being consumed in politics through shell companies.

Forward path

• There is no doubt that the right to information and knowledge in the freedom of expression and expression in the Constitution is also inherent.
• Without full knowledge about the identity of those who give funding to different parties, it is also difficult to imagine that someone can participate meaningfully in political and public life.
• It is important to have institutionalization of equality through the principle of 'one person-one vote' in the creation of the structure of the Republic of India.
• When the power of one vote of that person is blurred by obscurity in political funding, then democracy will completely lose its internal value.
• Therefore, two possibilities can be talked about in the context of the electoral bond scheme-

♦ First, the government does not understand the constitution; 
♦ Second, understand, and clearly defy it.

Sources: The Hindu