Opinion From the Opinions Editor: Release of electoral bonds data is a watershed moment

Last Monday, the Court rejected State Bank of India’s request to delay the release of the data on electoral bonds to June 30. The Court had earlier directed the SBI to submit the data to the EC by March 6. Accepting the SBI’s request would have meant that information on who purchased the bonds and who received them would have been disclosed to the electorate only after the national elections were concluded. This, as an editorial in this paper (‘Do not delay’, IE, March 7) noted, would have deprived the voters of critical information before they exercised their franchise. This newspaper argued that the SBI’s plea should be rejected as it contradicted the letter and spirit of the Court’s order striking down the electoral bond scheme, which was anchored in the citizen’s right to know. As CJI DY Chandrachud said,“information about funding of political parties is essential for the effective exercise of the choice of voting.”

Rather than usher in more transparency, and help clean up the shadowy world of campaign finance, the electoral bond scheme had ended up doing the opposite, as former Chief Election Commissioner, S Y Quraishi wrote on these pages (‘Transparency at stake’, IE, November 4). Many have argued that this opaque mechanism, which also facilitated cronyism, immensely benefited the ruling party. After all, the BJP received Rs 6,060 crore through these bonds — this is more than the combined donations received by the next four parties.

As money is central to a party’s election campaign, greater flows to a particular party can severely tilt the playing field. In democracies where campaign finances are more transparent and allow for tracking of funds raised by candidates, those with larger war chests are seen to have an edge in electoral contests. In fact, the ability to raise resources often tends to determine how effectively a candidate can wage battle. It is even more so for an Opposition party candidate.

The concerns over cronyism, of quid pro quos facilitated by the scheme, were articulated by the Court. As the five-judge bench pointed out, “at a primary level, political contributions… enhance access to legislators. This access also translates to influence over policy-making. There is also a legitimate possibility that financial contributions to a political party would lead to a quid pro quo arrangement because of the close nexus between money and politics.”

The release of the electoral bonds data only seems to have reaffirmed these concerns in the eyes of many. The donors are more from sectors that rely on state discretion, sectors where companies require licences and clearances (such as mining and telecom) or where lucrative contracts are awarded by the government (for example infrastructure). In stark comparison, instances of donations by entities or individuals from sectors that are less strongly regulated by the government, for instance the new age tech companies, are not as many. There is also the troubling pattern of donors purchasing bonds around the time of investigations by agencies which seems to affirm concerns over the government’s weaponisation of agencies.

The release of the donor list is, however, not the end of the issue. On Friday, the Court issued notice to the State Bank of India on the question of disclosing the unique alphanumeric code that would make it possible to match each electoral bond purchased with the party that received it. This could also perhaps provide clues on why they did so.

Campaign finance laws are a deeply contested arena across the world. In his Union budget 2017-18 speech, then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had underscored how transparency in funding political parties was “vital to the system of free and fair elections”. Now, as another national election commences, efforts to make the funding of political parties and elections more transparent must carry on. Funding must not fall back on the pre-2018 route as is being feared by some including former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg (‘A Pyrrhic victory’, IE, February 16).

While there have been several suggestions to clean up political financing in the country — from public funding of political parties (‘No going back to square one’, IE, March 15) to using only digital means of donations (‘The name is electoral bond’, IE, March 16) — the next government must seriously look into this issue, and ensure that any steps taken conform to the principles of transparency and accountability.

Till next week,

Ishan Bakshi