The facts:
As reported in media recently, following are some of the facts about political funding in India.
1. Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR, a non-partisan, non-governmental organization which works in the area of electoral and political reforms in India) says the income of national parties from unknown sources increased by 313%.
2. The total income of national and regional political parties between 2004-05 and 2014-15 stood at ₹11,367 crore,
3. According to an analysis done by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 69% of the income of these parties was from unknown sources.
It means the political parties received major portion of their donations from multiple unknown & undeclared sources (are they fictitious or from black money holders? Not known!) contributed in lots of Rs. 20,000 or less.
4. The income of national parties from unknown sources increased by 313% during the decade.
For the regional parties, it went up by 652%.
5. The BSP is the party which has got 100% of its income through donations from unknown sources. Its total income increased by 2,057%, from ₹5.19 crore during 2004-05 to ₹111.96 crore in 2014-15.
6. Income of Congress party was the highest at ₹3,982 crore which is about 43% of the total income of six national parties .
BJP stood second with an income of ₹3,272.63 crore, just over 35% of the the total income of six national parties.
The CPI(M) declared the third highest income of about ₹893 crore.
7. About 83% of the total income of the Congress party, amounting to ₹3,323.39 crore, and 65% of total income of the BJP, amounting to ₹2,125.91 crore, came from unknown sources.
8. The BJP topped the list for declaring the maximum of ₹918 crore voluntary contributions through donations in excess of Rs. 20,000.
The donations declared by the BJP are more than twice the donations declared by the Congress during the same period.
9. The BSP has not reported any donation above ₹20,000 in the past 11 years.
10. The total declared income of regional parties during the period stood at ₹2,089 crore.
The Samajwadi Party has declared highest income of ₹819 crore, followed by the DMK with ₹203 crore and the AIADMK with ₹165 crore.
ADR & Election Commission Recommendations:
1. Based on the findings, the ADR has recommended that full details of all donors be made available for public scrutiny under the RTI.
Some countries where this is done include Bhutan, Nepal, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Bulgaria, the United States and Japan. In none of these countries it it possible for almost 75% of the source of funds to be unknown, but at present it is so in India.
2. ADR said that any organisation that receives foreign funding should not be allowed to support or campaign for any candidate or political party.
3. The Election Commission had recommended that tax exemption be awarded only to those political parties which contest and win seats in Lok Sabha or Assembly elections.
14. The EC also suggested that details of all donors who donate above ₹2,000 be made public.
15. ADR report suggests that scrutiny of the political party’s financial documents should be conducted annually by a body approved by the EC and the Comptroller and Auditor General for greater transparency and accountability.
The Road Ahead:
1. One thing is to be noted that all the political donations whether it is one Rupee or one crore Rupee is the public money, means, it is funded by you, me & every Indian citizens whether it is individual donation or corporate donation. If it is individual donation, it is a public money, donated by people like us. If it is a corporate donation, it is also a public money earned by corporate houses from public like us. All forms are money made or earned is public money which is national wealth as they are squeezed from public only. So all forms of political donations are public money and therefore it demands 100% transparency & auditing by a competent authority like CAG.
2. The law has to be equal for citizens as well as for political parties in terms of declaration of sources of incomes. Otherwise, it violates the fundamental right of Equality before the law guaranteed under the Indian Constitution which says —The State shall not deny to any person
equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of
India.
The political parties are surely persons & not ghosts.
If income tax rules entitle tax exemption to political parties, let them enjoy the same but don't allow them to hide the source of income even if is one Rupee. If public hides his/her income, he/she would be in jail whereas political parties enjoy total freedom which is totally discriminatory and against the spirit of the Constitution.
3. In a democracy, the political parties and the people, both are the stakeholders. Through election process, the winning candidates of the political parties form the government. It also does not mean that the government is formed only by the majority party but the remaining parties, the so called opposition parties too are the part of the government, otherwise, if they don’t have any role in government, they should sit outside the parliament and state assemblies and also should not claim any salary and perks. Since the political parties and the people are the stakeholders, the government (meaning thereby all the political parties collectively) must ensure that it’s actions are always in the interest of general public and total transparency is maintained in their funding and expenses in accordance with the Constitution.
On maintaining 100% transparency in political funding, the political parties collectively have been adopting double standards? They form one set of laws for general public and another set of laws for political parties. Subsequent to the recent demonetization step of the government banning Rs. 500/- and Rs. 1000/- notes to eradicate the black money, terror funding & fake currency menace, the Prime Minister, Modi has been echoing the idea of transparency in political funding, considering it as a root cause in generating black money and giving rise to crony capitalism. The Prime Minister has also welcomed the suggestion of EC that details of all donors who donate above ₹2,000 be made public. Of late other political parties are also taking a positive public posture in favour of transparency in political funding (may be under the political compulsions). The question is who will bell the cat? Few political parties are asking for building a consensus while others are asking BJP government to come up with a law. No party voluntarily is prepared to declare that from today, they will maintain 100% transparency in funding and are prepared to come under the RTI act.
The public are looking towards the BJP lead NDA government to come up with a stringent law making compulsory for all political parties to maintain 100% transparency in their funding and come under RTI act.Else, you can not ask other person or a party to be honest until and unless you yourselves are honest. The famous saying "यथा राजा, तथा प्रजा" ...Yatha Raja, Tatha Praja... जिस देश का राजा जैसा होता है, उस देश की प्रजा भी वैसी ही हो जाती है, meaning; the citizens of a country becomes like the king".
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