So
Much for Transparency !
Economic Times ( 03 Jan ) carries following news :
“
FM Details Nuts & Bolts of Bonds for Poll Funding “
HIGHLIGHTS :
·
Donors can buy these bonds and give them to the party
of their choice.
·
The party can en-cash them through designated
bank accounts within 15 days.
·
The bond will be a bearer instrument in the
nature of a promissory note that's issued by select State Bank of India
branches to valid account holders
·
Electoral bonds would be issued/purchased for
any value in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs
1crore from specified branches of SBI
·
The bonds will be available at the designated
SBI branches for 10 days each in January, April, July and October as specified by the
Centre. This will increase to 30 days in the year that Lok Sabha elections are
due.
·
They will not earn any interest and only Indian citizens or bodies incorporated in
the country can purchase them. Strict conditions will be put in place to check
misuse and prevent financial wrongdoing.
The purchaser would be allowed to buy electoral bonds only on due
fulfilment of all know your customer (KYC) norms and by making the payment from a bank account
The electoral bond will have a life of only 15 days during which it can be used for making donations only to parties
registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1951
The 15-day period has been prescribed to ensure that they do not become
a parallel currency.
* Only political parties that got at least 1% of the total votes polled in either the last
assembly or general
election will be eligible to accept electoral bonds, ruling out
those formed after the last poll. This is
to prevent the floating of bogus parties just
before an election to collect
funds.
Although the buyer has to fulfil KYC norms, the bonds will not carry the person's
name.
Since the name
of the payee will not be disclosed to the Election Commission, donations will remain
anonymous.
This will help in a scenario in which donors may be hesitant to be
identified as supporting a
particular party.
Every political party will file before Election Commission return as to how much
money has come through electoral bonds
·
The bond shall be en-cashed by an eligible
political party only through a designated bank account with the authorised bank
(SBI)
·
The government intends to have just a few
designated SBI branches, most
likely only one in a state,
for issuing electoral bonds, sources said. No other bank
can issue the bonds
The bonds will also put
a stop to funds being diverted within political parties, the government hopes.
====================================================
MY TAKE :
·
Since “ Something is better than nothing
“ , we must welcome this initiative
·
But , imagine the following scenario :
#
Mr Antani of Alliance Industries , buys bonds worth Rs 5 crores from his
company’s SBI bank account , after due KYC verification.
He
buys 2 bonds , one of Rs 3 crore and another of Rs 2 crore
Having
used his Company’s bank account, this entry would have to appear in
his Company’s year-end Balance Sheet / Annual Report ( a document in public
domain
) – under heading “ Purchase of Electoral Bonds “ – which is visible to
all
#
Mr Antani meets , General Secretaries of 2 political parties and
hands over those papers , IN PERSON (-
not surprising , considering that the
bond does not carry the donor’s name – and of course, you want to be
remembered ! )
So, each of those General Secretaries, know how much bond money his party
got from Alliance Industry
But he has no idea of how much donation
Alliance Industry gave to how many
other
parties – until he looks up that Balance Sheet
! Now he can guess , who
got and how much from Alliance Industry ! And he will remember while
taking
decisions
#
Of course, the following will not know who gave how much donation to which
political party :
En-cashing Bank ( of the Political Party
)
Election
Commission will know
Public
As if this was not enough , the amended Income Tax Act reads :
“ Any contributions received by way of electoral bond shall be excluded
from
reporting “
Does anyone have any doubt that the whole idea behind introduction of Electoral
Bonds
is ,
·
not to introduce TRANSPARENCY ,
but to reinforce existing ANONYMITY
·
to ensure that no relation ( Quid pro
Quo ) can ever be established between a donor and a government largesse
to that donor
·
to ensure that neither the Income Tax department , nor the Election
Commission ,nor any watchdog organization ( such as ADR ), nor the citizens can
examine the records of political parties ( Who gave How much to Whom and spent
Where ! )
·
to ensure that cash donations of Rs 2000 or less , can continue
un-abated
=======================================================
Could
the NDA government done anything different to bring about true TRANSPARENCY ,
to the entire issue of Political Funding ?
YES
, if it had the courage to implement my following blog / email [ 06
July 2017 ] :
====================================================
Thursday, 6 July 2017
Economic Times ( 06 July ) carries a report titled :
“ Political Funding Next on Radar : FM “
As per this report , Shri Jaitley said :
=====================================================
“ We are looking at some major steps to be announced by which we
want to cleanse the entire political
funding in India
For the last 70 years, the world’s
largest democracy has survived on funding which really brings no credit to the
democracy and I think it has been the prime minister’s insistence that this has
to be one of the subjects that the government has to take up now as a top priority “
We are aware of some modest reforms
( electoral bonds / cap on cash payments ) that Shri Jaitley introduced in the last
budget
But no one believes that these reforms
go far enough ( - including CEC ! )
Millions of Indians ( but no political
party ) want ALL donations ,
irrespective of the amount involved , to be by official / transparent channels
( cheque / Online Payment etc ) , and want mandatory
filing of INCOME / EXPENSE statements with CEC !
I request Shri Jaitleyji to consider following
suggestion :
STRUCTURE
· No
direct donations ( even Rs 5 )
by anyone to any Political Party or to any Political Leader ( even as birth-day
gift ! )
· Creation
of a CENTRAL ELECTION FUND ( CEF )
, controlled / administered by the Central Election Commission
· Donations
can only be given to CEF – and
only by cheque / online etc , quoting Aadhar number
· Donations
will get tax exemption as CSR
· CEC will publish , on its web site , a
continuous / dynamic / daily ACCOUNT of amounts received ( with Aadhar
No of each donor ) and amounts spent / disbursed by CEC to Political Parties /
Candidates ( with full details of each )
· From CEF ,
Election Commission will distribute FUNDS to political parties for fighting elections
/ other expenses , on predetermined ‘ Occasions ‘
PROCESS
· Funding of Political Parties by CEC ( from CEF ) , can be made as per
following two alternatives :
[ A ]
AFTER THE ELECTION ( CANDIDATE – based Reimbursements ) :
# After each Election ( Central /
State / Municipal ) , ALL candidates contesting the election ( including
independent candidates ) , shall submit to CEC , a STATEMENT of EXPENSES incurred in fighting the election.
Even if a group of parties have come
together to fight the election ( MahaGathBandhan ), each candidate will get
linked to ONE party only
# Statement will be as per format
decided by CEC , giving
category-wise expense details ( all payments listed in the statement , must be
through legal / official channels , such as Cheque / Electronic Bank Transfer /
Mobile Wallets etc )
# There will be UPPER LIMITS of REIMBURSEMENT for each category of
expense and an overall limit
# The statement will also show the
“ Sources of Funds “ ( with
full details such as OWN or borrowed from
CLOSE RELATIVEs , with names )
# Actual amount to be reimbursed
to each candidate , will be computed based on a number of factors , main factor
being the “ percentage of popular
votes polled “ by that
candidate ( no reimbursement for those candidates who get less than 5 % of
popular vote )
# Actual re-imbursements made
by CEC , shall not be counted
as INCOME of that candidate , for Income Tax purpose
[ B ]
BEFORE THE ELECTION ( PARTY – wise ADVANCES ) :
# Before each election , All recognized Political Parties will
get ADVANCES from CEF ,
computed using aTRANSPARENT , mathematical formula , based on following factors :
# FACTORS with POSITIVE
WEIGHTAGE :
· In
all the elections since independence ( Central + States + Municipal ) , percentage of popular votes polled by
each party in those elections along with the percentage
of seats won by each party
· Number
of years for which the party has been recognized by CEC
· Cumulative
number of “ Days “ ( not months or years ) , each
party was in power ( Centre + States + Municipality ) since
independence
· No
( or percentage ) of seats “ won “
in each election
# FACTORS with NEGATIVE WEIGHTAGE :
· No
of MPs / MLAs having criminal cases pending
against them
· No
of times candidates / parties were “ warned “
by CEC ( for any reason )
· No
of years for which Annual Return NOT filed
with EC
· No
of candidates / Legislators convicted by a Court
DEAR SHRI JAITLEYJI :
Above mentioned suggestion , is by no
means , comprehensive
You may want to consider a HYBRID MODEL which is a combination of
the alternatives listed above
It is important that all the figures /
data used in the FORMULA , are
supplied only by the Election Commission and
theSpeakers of various legislatures
– and made public
Since there is no way political parties
will reach a consensus on my
suggestion , best way would be to publish an onlineSURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE and ask citizens to vote / rate ,
against each item of suggestion and then publish theFINDINGS ( on ALL government web sites ) , on a continuous
basis
It
would be too much to expect the Political Parties to accept this reform without
building up pressure from 800 + million voters .
You
may even consider a REFERENDUM !
04 Jan 2018
www.hemenparekh.in
/ blogs
With Regards,
hemen
parekh
(
M ) +91 - 98,67,55,08,08
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