Names of donors, donees must be public: Cong on political funding

Congress treasurer Motilal Vora has expressed concerns about the electoral funding laws being mooted by Centre, saying that the proposed laws will not help the cause of transparency much.

In a letter to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley dated May 30 this year, the Rajya Sabha MP from Chhattisgarh said that the revamped laws being mulled would only make the names of donors and donees available to the government.

“I am afraid that this will not ensure transparency in electoral funding; on the contrary, it will be a completely opaque mechanism,” Vora stated in his letter, the receipt of which was acknowledged by Jaitley in another letter dated June 14.

“My party’s view is that, to ensure total transparency, the names of the donors and the donees and the amounts donated must be disclosed so that the people will have the information,” Vora said.

Arun Jaitley, during his Budget speech earlier this year, announced capping of anonymous cash donations to political parties at Rs. 2,000 and introduced electoral bonds.

As per the electoral bond mechanism announced in the Budget, the proposed bonds will resemble a promissory note and not an interest-paying debt instrument. They will be sold by authorised banks and can be deposited in notified accounts of political parties within the duration of their validity. The bonds will not carry the name of the donor and routing of the money through banks will ensure that only tax paid money comes into the political system.

In a debate in Parliament in March, Jaitley had said that he had invited suggestions from all political parties on making electoral funding more “transparent and clear.”

"I have an open invitation to all, please suggest to me a better system which will ensure clean money and transparency to the extent possible. I am yet to receive a single suggestion. "I am only hearing adjectives like 'it must be clean', 'it must be transparent'. Please give me ideal combination of the two. We are willing to consider it. I will wait for a specific suggestion," Jaitley had said.

(with PTI inputs)