Electoral bonds have made poll funding more opaque: Experts

Those working on electoral reforms and bringing in more transparency in election funding say that the electoral bonds announced by the Center have had the opposite effect, making the entire process of funding more opaque than ever.

Earlier, the donations to political parties below Rs 20000 could be anonymous. Now it has been brought down to Rs 2000 but that hasn't prevented the opacity to end as now show the fake receipts for less than Rs 2000, said Maj. Gen. Anil Verma of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

He said that analysis of information sought under RTI of electoral bonds show that 87.5% of the number of electoral bonds were for Rs 1 crore and this accounted for 39% of the total bonds sold.

"This shows that most of the high-value bonds have been brought by corporates. Who buys these bonds and which are the political parties who are getting the donation by way of bonds are not know. So where is the transparency," said Verma.

He said that the major argument made for ensuring anonymity was that it prevented the party that comes to power from being vindictive against donors who did not donate money to them. Experts, however, said the RBI would still continue to have details of the bonds sold and who cashed them thus effectively making the date available to the party in power as and when it wishes to know.

"But what the argument forgets is that the whole electoral bonds were promised as an effort at making election funding more transparent but the anonymity provided to donors and receivers have practically ensured that they remain extremely opaque," he said.

He added that of the 11 centres were the electoral bonds were available the highest value of bonds were sold the most in Mumbai and Delhi. The experts said that there was a need for election spending to be audited by a committee of Chartered Accountants set up under the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India.

On the issue of simultaneous elections, Bhaskar Assoldekar, the Goa state coordinator for Election Watch said that there were some benefits and disadvantages too. "Some of the benefits will be stability in governance since the government will not be perennially in an election mode and low expenditure on elections," he said.

The cons he said included national narrative being submerged by the regional story and this adversely affecting the federal character of the country. Rohit Shukla of Drushti Foundation said the biggest advantage of elections not being held simultaneously was that it kept the Centre on its toes. State elections often force the Centre to relook at its performances and what the voters want. "At present, fuel prices are on the rise but we are not seeing any action from the Centre. But it was quick to help cut the prices when the Karnataka elections were on," said Shukla. He also raised the questions of what would happen if a simultaneous elections were to be made and one of the state government was dismissed using the powers of article 356. "Would that mean a state would be without an elected government until the next election happened?" asked Shukla.