BJP’s Electoral Bond Scrutiny: Defending Political Parties’ Donation Rights

GG News Bureau
New Delhi, 19th March. Presently, “Electoral Bond” politics are being played out nationwide. All political parties, including the Congress, are trying to corner the Bharatiya Janata Party by calling it the biggest donation scam. It is noteworthy, however, that the collective income of the opposition has been higher than that of the BJP, which is in power. These political parties are still agitating and talking about transparency even after that! After successfully obtaining donations totaling crores of rupees through the “Electoral Bond,” what morality is the Congress party itself talking about?

In actuality, all political parties are entitled to accept donations in order to maintain their smooth operations. It is illegal for anyone to legally question political parties that have received corporate donations in this situation as well. Because it is up to each person, group, organization, and business to decide who they support and how the country will profit from that choice. Any Bharatiya citizen, in accordance with the democratic system and the Bharatiya Constitution, is free to donate any amount to any political party while keeping the interests of the nation in mind.

Public disclosure of “Electoral Bond” information

To some extent, it is a good thing that the Supreme Court has opened up the “Electoral Bond” through the Election Commission’s website in order to promote democratic transparency. Additionally, it has made it easier to make a lot of other crucial decisions in the future. For instance, every ministry, department and organization in the nation that carries out government business as well as those where the Right to Information is relevant. The Supreme Court has the authority to further order that they disclose all of their income, savings, and purchases to the public in each of those locations. How much was built on a project, how much more money was spent, whether the work was finished on schedule or took longer than expected, etc. This implies that the court ought to issue directives requiring the public release of all information, both significant and minor, as well as bills and vouchers.

If the court makes such a ruling, every citizen will be overjoyed

In actuality, this will imply that the right to information is currently receiving a lot of attention. Officials occasionally respond slowly and occasionally purposefully withhold information. An “Information Officer” won’t be required to give any kind of information in such a case. Public access to all departmental and institutional revenue and expense data will be provided on their website. Currently, it costs crores of rupees nationwide for the average man to have access to information. Government expenditures on labor, time, and money will all be reduced.

Transparency should permeate the entire system

When the Supreme Court discusses transparency, the entire system ought to be covered. So why should this matter remain unknown to the court? What was the judge’s entire net worth prior to accepting the position and how much has it increased since then? What sources of income do they have in addition to their salaries, considering that many of those judges’ incomes have recently increased significantly? It should be open to the public to access all such data pertaining to any department and government worker, including those working in the legal system. Apart from matters where confidentiality is permitted by the Constitution, why is secrecy necessary in any case?

The prevalence of donations made to political parties, public companies, and individual names in relation to “Electoral Bonds” is currently evident! Returning to the subject. Who by purchasing “Electoral Bonds,” has destroyed political correctness! Why are leaders of other opposition parties, including Rahul Gandhi and Kapil Sibal, and Congressmen holding the BJP accountable? Because, according to the data, the government introduced this plan in an effort to end the dominance of black money in Bharatiya politics. Election bonds totalling slightly more than Rs 22,000 crore are all available to the public.

Bonds for elections exceeding Rs 22,500 were bought

State Bank of India (SBI) information provided to the Supreme Court indicates that bonds for elections totaling more than Rs 22.5 thousand were bought. 22,030 of these were cashed by political parties. In which donations totaling more than Rs 14,000 crore were given to other political parties and Rs 6,986.5 crore to the BJP. TMC received Rs 1,397 crore, Congress received Rs 1,334 crore, BRS received Rs 1,322 crore, BJD received Rs 944.5 crore, and DMK received Rs 656.5 crore out of all of them.

In addition, YSR Congress received Rs 442.8 crore; other political parties that received funding were TDP, Shiv Sena, RJD, Aam Aadmi Party, Janata Dal Secular, Nationalist Congress Party, Janasena Party, Samajwadi Party, JDU, JMM, Shiromani Akali Dal, AIADMK, and Sikkim Krantikari Morcha. Parties both national and regional, including the Democratic Front and Rashtriya Janata Dal, have received donations totaling several crores of rupees. In addition, the Maharashtra Gomantak Party, JK National Conference, and Nationalist Congress Party of Maharashtra State have received less than one crore in funding. Regional political parties have gotten Rs 5.5 crore overall, in addition to national political parties.

Attempt to mislead by introducing the “Electoral Bond” issue

The main question here is why political parties are raising awareness of this issue when the majority of them have raised election funds via “Electoral Bonds.” What exactly does the opposition want to dig out? Is there significant corruption here? Home Minister Amit Shah is essentially asking for the BJP to receive more than Rs 6,000 crore of the more than Rs 20,000 crore in electoral bonds, which is not a particularly unreasonable request. Where were the remaining bonds taken? While the rest receive over Rs 14,000 crore despite having 242 MPs, we, with 303 MPs, receive less than Rs 7,000 crore. What’s the fuss all about, Shah wonders? Undoubtedly, in that case, it would be imperative to declare that the nation’s Lok Sabha elections have been declared. There should be no attempt made to mislead the public by bringing up the “Electoral Bond” issue during this great festival of democracy.