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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Here is why the electoral bonds scheme must go -Gautam Bhatia

Here is why the electoral bonds scheme must go -Gautam Bhatia

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published Published on Mar 26, 2021   modified Modified on Mar 27, 2021

-The Hindu

It violates the basic tenets of India’s democracy by keeping the knowledge of the ‘right to know’ from citizens and voters

The Supreme Court, after a brief hearing on March 24, reserved orders on the question of whether or not to stay the electoral bond scheme, ahead of the upcoming State elections. For the last three years, electoral bonds have been the dominant method of political party funding in India. In their design and operation, they allow for limitless and anonymous corporate donations to political parties. For this reason, they are deeply destructive of democracy, and violate core principles of the Indian Constitution.

A blow against democracy

If democracy means anything, it must mean this: when citizens cast their votes for the people who will represent them in Parliament, they have the right to do so on the basis of full and complete information. And there is no piece of information more important than the knowledge of who funds political parties. Across democratic societies, and through time, it has been proven beyond doubt that money is the most effective way of buying policy, of engaging in regulatory capture, and of skewing the playing field in one’s own favour. This is enabled to a far greater degree when citizens are in the dark about the source of money: it is then impossible to ever know — or assess — whether a government policy is nothing more than a quid pro quo to benefit its funders. The Indian Supreme Court has long held — and rightly so — that the “right to know”, especially in the context of elections, is an integral part of the right to freedom of expression under the Indian Constitution. By keeping this knowledge from citizens and voters, the electoral bonds scheme violates fundamental tenets of our democracy.

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The Hindu, 26 March, 2021, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/here-is-why-the-electoral-bonds-scheme-must-go/article34163851.ece?homepage=true


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