Electoral Bond Scheme Being Pushed Through Under a Veil of Secrecy, Alleges RTI Activist

'Though the scheme to issue electoral bonds was announced by finance minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech in February this year, the Ministry of Finance, the Election Commission of India (EC) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have all claimed to be unaware of the plan in their replies to queries filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

RTI activist and programme coordinator at Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative Venkatesh Nayak, who had filed the plea, has stated that electoral bonds were the ‘big idea’ floated in the Union Budget to change the way donations were made to political parties.

“The government amended three laws relating to elections, income tax and the RBI to create this new method of making monetary donations to political parties. Briefly explained, anybody will be able to buy electoral bonds in the form of bearer bonds from a designated commercial bank for any sum of money and donate it anonymously to a political party that he, she or it (private entity) chooses,” he said.

Stating that these amendments had removed the obligation of political parties to record and report the identity of electoral bonds-style donors to both the regulatory bodies, namely, the EC and the Income Tax (IT) Department, Nayak said that the electoral bonds scheme came under the sub-heading of ‘Transparency of Electoral Funding’ in the Budget document...'

[Full article on The Wire.]