Congress demands govt to disclose electoral bond details before Parliament

Congress party demanded the BJP-led government to disclose all details about the electoral bonds before the Parliament, alleging that the scheme has resulted in money laundering and has even hindered the transparency in the funding of political parties. Describing electoral bonds as a "political bribery scheme", the Congress party called it a scam that tarnished the fabric of Indian democracy.

Addressing a press conference in Delhi, senior Congress leaders including Azad, Randeep Surjewala and Anand Sharma said that under the electoral bond scheme, the donor buying the bonds could remain anonymous and at the same time, a political party needed to share the details as regards from whom it got how much money.

"What we are talking about today leads straight to the PM's office. The BJP govt is running 90% of the business in this country with a few industrialists," senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said. "Our demand is that the PM must intervene and the government must disclose full donor information, who donated crores to the BJP coffers, and place this information before Parliament," Congress' Anand Sharma said.

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Parliament is in session and the government should make the disclosure before both the houses, he added. Congress further claimed that the government introduced the scheme by ignoring the objections of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and that it was a way of political extortion of money

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday took a dig at the BJP-led government over reports that it overruled the RBI to introduce electoral bonds, saying in 'New' India, bribes and illegal commissions are called electoral bonds. The Congress on Monday alleged that the Modi government had overruled the RBI to introduce electoral bonds to enable "black money to enter the BJP coffers" and demanded that the scheme be scrapped immediately.

"In 'New' India, bribes & illegal commissions are called Electoral Bonds," Gandhi said in a tweet.

Earlier, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also attacked the government on the issue, alleging that electoral bonds were "cleared by bypassing RBI" and "dismissing" national security concerns in order to enable black money to enter the BJP coffers. 

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What are electoral bonds?

Electoral bonds may be purchased by a person, who is a citizen of India or corporated or established in India. A person being an individual can buy electoral bonds, either singly or jointly with other individuals. Only the political parties registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and which secured not less than 1% of the votes polled in the last general election to the House of the People of the Legislative Assembly of the state shall be eligible to receive electoral bonds. 

According to reports, the BJP became the biggest beneficiary of the scheme launched by the government in 2017-18. The saffron party has reportedly received Rs. 210 crore out of the total Rs. 221 crore of bonds redeemed in the year 2017-18. The Congress has received Rs. 5 crore and smaller parties have collectively received Rs. 6 crores. 

(With agency inputs)

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