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Polity & Governance
Mahesh

21/09/22 06:21 AM IST

CEC Rajiv Kumar asks to cap political donations to cleanse election funding of black money

In News 
  • In an attempt to avert illegal funding in elections, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar has asked the law ministry to cap the cash donations to political parties.
Reccomendations
  • The EC has sought to make digital transactions or account payee cheque transfers mandatory for all expenses above ₹2,000 to a single entity/person.
  • Amendment to Rule 89 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961: A candidate would have to maintain a separate account for receipt and payments related to elections and the same has to be transparently disclosed to authorities, as an account of election expenditure.
  • RP Act and the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010: The EC has also sought “electoral reforms” to ensure that no foreign donations creep into the funds of the parties as stipulated under these laws.
Electoral Bond Scheme 
  • Under the electoral bond scheme, only the ruling party via the State Bank of India (SBI) has a full account of all donations being made via electoral bonds.
  • Parliament, the Election Commission and the Opposition parties do not have this information, nor do the public.
  • In effect, electoral bonds give political power to companies, wealthy individual donors, and foreign entities, thus diluting the universal franchise of one voter-one vote.
Amendments in Companies Act, 2013
  • The Finance Bill of 2017 amended Section 182 of the Companies Act of 2013 to remove the requirement for declaring disaggregated donations to political parties.
  • Earlier, only profit-making domestic companies could contribute to political parties; now loss-making companies can too.
  • Further, the limit of 7.5% for corporate donations to political parties has been removed.
  • With this amendment corporations are free to donate any amount of money and are not liable to declare the recipient of their donations.
Way forward 
  • Companies and political parties could exercise moral leadership and voluntarily disclose the identity of recipients and donors, as the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha recently did.
  • State Funding of Elections: In many advanced countries, elections are funded publicly. This ensures principles of parity and there is not too great a resource gap between the ruling party and the opposition.
  • 2nd ARC, Dinesh Goswami committee, and several others have also recommended state funding of elections.
  • Further, until the elections do not get publicly funded, there can be caps or limits on financial contributions to political parties.
  • India has been working well as a democracy for nearly 75 years. Now in order to make the government more accountable, the voters should become self-aware and reject candidates and parties that violate the principle of free and fair elections.
Source- Live Mint 

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