Not bringing parties under RTI purview will let them hide black money: Anna Hazare

Anna Hazare reminded PM Narendra Modi of his promise to bring back black money and said that the latest move by the government was contradictory to this promise.

Anna Hazare

Criticising the Central Government’s move to file an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying political outfits can’t be brought under the purview of RTI Act, activist Anna Hazare said that by doing this the government has “given a license to conversion of black money into white money”.

Hazare reminded Prime Minister Narendra Modi of his promise to bring back black money and said that the latest move by the government was contradictory to this promise.

“Before Lok Sabha polls Narendra Modi promised that if elected PM he will bring back black money stashed away in tax havens and deposit Rs 15 lakh in every Indian’s account. But what I seen now is that the government has opened a highway for political parties to convert black money into legal funds,” said Hazare.

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“We know that presently the political parties are not bound to provide details of the amounts received below Rs 20,000. This has given them considerable leeway in escaping scrutiny. Bringing them into the RTI’s purview would have helped to give at least some transparency in the funding of the political outfits. This move has given a big blow to attempts towards this goal,” he added.
Hazare said that the Modi government has failed in reining in the corruption and that it was no better than the previous government on this front.

“Modi has taken a U-turn by refusing to bring the political outfits under RTI. The latest move will suffocate the democracy. I will be protesting against this move along with delay in the implementation of One Rank One Pension (OROP) and to oppose the amendment of the Land Acquisition Bill,” said Hazare.

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