Sign In
Learn bits
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 

More Related Current Affairs View All

05 Aug

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)

'In a note that police found in his wallet, the gunman who killed four people in New York on Monday claimed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — a result of playin

Read More

05 Aug

How India’s pesticide market is changing

'Crop protection chemicals are commonly known as “pesticides”.' These are basically substances sprayed on crops to protect against insects (“pests”) that

Read More

04 Aug

Maharashtra’s new security Bill

'The Maharashtra Legislature passed the Maharashtra Special Public Security Bill or a ‘Bill to provide for effective prevention of certain unlawful activities of Left Wing Ex

Read More

India’s First Ai-Driven Magazine Generator

Generate Your Custom Current Affairs Magazine using our AI in just 3 steps