Why state financing is the only way to ensure fair and transparent poll funding | The Indian Express

Why state financing is the only way to ensure fair and transparent poll funding | The Indian Express

Written by Ashok Khemka |Updated: April 16, 2019 8:42:40 am

The writer is a senior IAS officer.

Why state financing is the only way to ensure fair and transparent poll funding

The finance ministry’s electoral bond scheme has afforded a way to fund political parties without disclosing the donor’s identity. The anonymity provision is antagonistic to transparency — the bonds merely enable an “on-the-books” secretive transfer.

Fiscal constraints on electioneering give rise to the problem of unaccounted money.

In just 28 days since the announcement of the general election, the Election Commission (EC) has seized cash, drugs, alcohol, precious metals and other items worth Rs 1,800 crore. Compare this to the legal upper limit of expenditure per candidate — Rs 70 lakh. Simple arithmetic would show that the seized amount can fully finance up to five candidates from each of the 543 constituencies. The amount seized is just the tip of the iceberg. The expenditure in any election is estimated to be several times the legal upper limit.