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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Are electoral bonds an elaborate ruse to protect anonymous donations? -Suchindran B N & Param Pandya

Are electoral bonds an elaborate ruse to protect anonymous donations? -Suchindran B N & Param Pandya

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published Published on Jan 7, 2018   modified Modified on Jan 7, 2018
-The Economic Times blog

Electoral bonds represent the latest attempt at removing black money from the electoral system. It is a financial instrument, much like a demand draft or currency note, which will conceal the identity of the donor from the intended recipient political party from everyone except the issuing bank.

These bonds can be purchased for any value, in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1,00,000, Rs 10,00,000 and Rs 1,00,00,000 from the specified branches of the State Bank of India. The bonds will have a 15-day validity that will ensure that they don’t become a safe haven or a parallel currency.

It seeks to address the reprisals that many donors fear or face. Significantly, the scheme, as per the Press Information Bureau (PIB) press release made public on Tuesday, would not be available to new political parties, since it is necessary that a party should have obtained at least 1% votes polled in the last election contested.

A Party for Bond


Also, it stated that the bonds can only be encashed into designated and registered bank accounts of those political parties that qualify for the scheme.

It’s a view of sorts.So, both political parties and donors will be required to comply with ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) norms.

These bonds will be available for purchase for 10 days each in January, April, July and October. An additional period of 30 days may be specified by GoI in a Lok Sabha election year.

A report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) states that funding to national and regional political parties from 2004-05 to 2014-15 has largely remained opaque. About 69% of the donations received by these parties amounting to Rs 7,832.98 crore were from unknown sources. Another ADR report reveals that 30.71% of the income of national parties in 2015-16 was from unknown sources. These data suggest that black money is channelled into parties in return for political patronage.

GoI believes that the introduction of electoral bonds is a second step towards eliminating black money in India’s electoral funding, the first being the reduction of limit for cash donation from Rs 20,000 to Rs 2,000. Both these reforms were first spoken about by finance minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech last year.

The very basis for electoral bonds, though, is a matter of doubt. Both the 255th Law Commission of India Report on Electoral Reforms and the report on Proposed Electoral Reforms by the Election Commission (EC) do not mention electoral bonds or anything similar as a weapon to fight black money in political parties’ financing. As per an RTI reply, the Reserve Bank of India, the EC or the finance ministry did not have any information about who suggested electoral bonds for political funding in India.

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The Economic Times, 4 January, 2018, https://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/et-commentary/is-electoral-bonds-scheme-an-elaborate-ruse-to-protect-anonymous-donations/


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