Parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Samajwadi Party, and the Telugu Desam Party do not declare the full extent of the donations they receive because the bulk are in cash, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in a blog on Sunday. He said that this was why the donations received by the Bharatiya Janata Party seem larger, because the party prefers transparent means of funding.
“All parties need, on a pro-rata basis, the same amount of money depending on the number of seats they are contesting,” Mr. Jaitley wrote. “The only question is ‘what is their fund collection culture?’ Do they still prefer the old obsolete style of only black money being collected or do they prefer to collect it by legitimate methods like crowd sourcing, cheque and electoral bonds?”
“Obviously, the BJP prefers the latter,” Mr. Jaitley added. “It declares larger income and gullible friends in the NGOs believe that they get more. Do they honestly believe the balance sheets of the BSP and the SP, the TDP or several other parties? They obviously don’t disclose the income that they get because most of these donations are in cash. This has significantly reduced the credibility of the reports of these NGOs.”
He said some NGOs in the country had released two reports, one saying that since the BJP declares a much larger income than other parties, it should be assumed that it gets more donations than other parties. The second report, he said, was on how the BJP gets the majority share of electoral bond donations.
“In 2017, based on the principle of masking the identity link between the party and the donor, the NDA created the instrument of electoral bonds,” Mr. Jaitley said. “This instrument provides for a complete white money donationThe bond as a banking instrument of the State Bank of India, a party had to deposit it in a single declared account by the political party. Both at the hands of the receiver and the donor, it is white money through a declared channel.”
The Finance Minister further said the electoral bond system of 2017 was similar in its principles to the electoral trust system introduced in 2010 by then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
“The donor declares in his balance sheet the quantum of bonds that he has bought,” Mr. Jaitley said. “The State Bank of India has a record of the donors. The recipient party declares the amount of bonds it has received. The link between the donor and the identity of the party is masked in the same way as is done in the case of electoral trust. Thus, both the electoral trust of 2010 and the electoral bonds of 2017 assured a total white money and improved transparency but masking the identity of the link between the donor and the party.”
“This obviously has been done to encourage donors to donate white money without fear of consequences,” he added. “Surprisingly the attack is against the bonds and not the electoral trusts because the earlier was brought by the NDA and the latter was by UPA. The underlying principle of both is the same.”