Poll panel guideline welcome; more is needed
The Election Commission Of India’s guideline regulating the financial transactions of political parties is an important step towards much-needed electoral reforms. It is an open secret that Indian elections are fought on crores of rupees of unaccounted money, sourced almost entirely from unknown donors. The financial trail leads to a murky nexus of political aspirations and business interests, which in turn forms the bedrock of the Indian polity — fuelling crime, corruption and nepotism across the social order. If India has to nurture further its renowned democratic credentials, it must take down this noxious system and put in its place one that is transparent, accountable and open to scrutiny. It is against this backdrop that the Election Commission's guidelines, issued on Friday under Article 324 of the Constitution (Superintendence, Direction and Control of Elections), must be viewed. The new guideline requires political parties to ensure that no payment in excess of Rs 20,000 is made to any person or company in cash (except in a village or town not served by a bank). The poll panel has also asked all parties to note any donation received in cash in their books and deposit the sum in their bank accounts within a week of its receipt. It has also made it compulsory for all political parties to maintain the names and addresses of all individuals, companies and entities that make cash donations, except for petty sums contributed, for example, during public rallies. According to the Stockholm-based International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance, India is among a mere 10 per cent of countries around the world that still allows either political parties or candidates to receive anonymous donations. Hopefully, this will change.
To understand the kind of impact these guidelines, if enforced properly, will have, one only has to take a look at the amount of poll money that came from unknown sources. A recent report prepared by two non-governmental organisations, which work in the field of electoral reforms, found that more than 75 per cent of the almost Rs 5,000 crore that national, State and regional parties together earned between 2004 and 2011 came from unknown sources. The Congress earned the most — Rs 2,008 crore — while the Bharatiya Janata Party came second with Rs 994 crore in the same period. The Representation of the People Act, 1951, says that political parties must declare the details for any contribution that is more than Rs 20,000, but there are enough loopholes in the law to make that clause ineffective. For instance, parties often break up a big donation from one source and dress it up as small donations from several donors. The Bahujan Samaj Party, for instance, had the third highest income of Rs 172 crore between 2009 and 2011, but it did not declare a single contribution of more than Rs 20,000. The very fact that political parties have to resort to such machinations shows it is time to reform electoral laws.