Opinion Cash in hand
The goals of demonetisation would be poorly served if parties are not transparent about their funding.
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On the eve of Republic Day — and as crucial states like Punjab and Uttar Pradesh head for elections — the Association for Democratic Reforms has brought to the fore the issue of anonymous election funding, which does not bode well for the moral health of the republic. It appears that in the decade between 2004-05 and 2014-15, political parties collected Rs 7,833 crore from persons and interests unknown. In the case of the six national and 51 regional parties surveyed, this means that 69 per cent of their cumulative income of Rs 11,367 crore is opaque.
For perspective, the annual volume of anonymous political donation is comparable to the government’s outlay on new ports and the National Waterways Project in 2016.
This is only the sum declared for tax purposes. However, political donations are frequently cash down, and the real sum may be much higher.
The removal of black money from electoral politics was an explicitly stated objective of demonetisation. The prime minister had urged political parties to move towards transparent collections. However, only the Aam Aadmi Party has made the names of small donors public, and this was strategic. Handing out receipts for very small donations and publishing the names of donors on the party website in its early days underscored the anti-corruption credentials of the party and attracted crowdfunding. But it is now revealed that 57 per cent of even the AAP’s collections were below the radar. To be sure, political organisations are not required to report sources of donations below Rs 20,000. And parties, particularly those which draw considerable support from the lower economic strata, like the AAP and the communist parties — cannot report all transactions because collection drives at rallies and neighbourhood meets are sometimes spontaneous and chaotic. However, the point of demonetisation would be lost if election funding remained in the black.
It is time for the BJP, which authored the demonetisation exercise, to take the lead and voluntarily declare the sources of the 65 per cent of donations which were anonymous. The Congress, which is almost 20 per cent ahead of the BJP on the opacity charts, should try not to be left behind. And state-level heavyweights like the Samajwadi Party (93.55 per cent of donations anonymous) may want to leave their murky past behind as they reach out to an increasingly youthful and sophisticated electorate. It is transparently obvious that for the health of the nation, cash must vanish from the political landscape.
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