Electoral bonds way to legalise political corruption: CPI-M

NEW DELHI: The CPI-M, which has already challenged electoral bonds in the Supreme Court, on Saturday termed this method of political financing a way to legalising political corruption and a resort for trade-offs between political parties and corporates.

“CPI-M has always believed that first step to ending political corruption is to ban donations by corporates to political parties. This is the supply side of corruption … and unless this is plugged, political corruption cannot be ended.

“Instead of that, you (BJP) are legalising political corruption. Electoral bonds are nothing but legalisation of political corruption,” Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told media here, reports IANS.

The Supreme Court on Friday had issued a notice to the centre on a CPI-M plea, which challenged the introduction of electoral bonds, which were operationalised earlier the same day through a notification.

“This (electoral bond system) is dangerous in the sense that any foreign company can also now donate to political parties and nobody knows who is donating it, which of the party is receiving it,” Yechury said.