Editorials: Unholy bonds

The BJP’s swelling treasure chest is an indication of how skewed the electoral playing field is

The details coming out of the now-scrapped electoral bond scheme have exposed quid pro quo arrangements between politicians and corporates dependent on the largesse of the governments. It has come to light that of 26 companies that bought the electoral bonds and have faced action by investigative agencies, 16 donated to political parties through bonds only after they came under the radar of these agencies. Further, the donations of another six companies surged after these agencies started cracking down on them. In another interesting case, the Coimbatore-based top donor ‘Future Gaming’, owned by lottery king Santiago Martin, did not purchase a single electoral bond until a year after it faced an Enforcement Directorate probe on alleged money laundering charges. Besides making political funding opaque, the electoral bonds scheme has undermined democracy. This is only the tip of the iceberg as electoral bonds account for just 5% of the total political expenditure in the country. The ruling BJP has been the biggest beneficiary of this nexus. The saffron party’s swelling treasure chest is an indication of how skewed the electoral playing field is, which clearly subverts democracy and the institutions running it. Big businesses and corporates have benefited from the dubious system. In fact, major industry associations like the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India and the Confederation of Indian Industry had petitioned the Supreme Court to defer the disclosure of the electoral bond unique identification numbers that would reveal who paid whom. But the court rightly refused to entertain these petitions.

An insane amount of money is spent by candidates to buy votes. One estimate pegs the expenditure in a general election at Rs 1 lakh crore. There may be many politicians who are individually honest but the harsh reality is that without institutional corruption, honesty and survival are not compatible in India now. We are living in an imperfect world, and it would be naïve to assume that just by banning the electoral bond scheme, things would become transparent and clean. The real challenge lies in bringing reforms in the electoral system to free it from money distribution and vote-buying. Politics must be run with the help of legitimately collected funds. A suggestion that deserves consideration is providing money from the public exchequer to the political parties to meet the expenses of their day-to-day functioning but not election expenditure in proportion to the votes they poll. There is a need to create a political economy where the party in power cannot determine the economic fortunes of enterprises or individuals. These reforms are tough and cannot happen overnight. Free and fair elections are not possible without transparency of political funding. It is, therefore, necessary that we confront this issue head-on and think of alternatives that can improve the life of Indian democracy.