‘Electoral bonds an instrument to convert black money into white’

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan on Sunday criticised the Union government for not taking proactive steps to bring in transparency in political funding. The new electoral bonds scheme would be “an instrument to convert black money into white”, he said.

“Instead of introducing a cashless system in electoral funding to track donations and expenditure, the Centre has done the exact opposite,” Bhushan said at a programme on “Political Corruption and Dangers to Democracy”, organised by Swaraj Abhiyan and Jana Sangrama Parishat in the city.

The electoral bonds, he said, would provide complete opacity though they are given from bank accounts. “It is a bearer bond with no name and serial number. It can be given to any political party without anybody knowing who has made the donation. This could be a way to give kickbacks from companies who have received a favour from the party that’s in power. Hence, the electoral bonds is going to be an instrument to convert black money into white,” Prashant Bhushan explained.


The Supreme court advocate, who was once a prominent member of India Against Corruption (IAC) movement, wanted the government to advocate cashless system of receiving donations. “Centre’s decision to allow foreign funding to the political parties is against the Foreign Contribution (regulation) Act. The party will be free to take any amount of money from the Indian subsidiary of foreign companies,” he said.

Noting that all the government agencies including judiciary is under threat, he said there is a concerted attempt to destroy all anti-corruption institutions. “A new method of blackmail has been found where the government uses its various agencies to investigate something wrong with the particular judge in his behaviour and thereafter uses the information to blackmail the judge into submission and get him to do whatever the government wants,” he alleged.

Congress is no good
Anti-corruption activist SR Hiremath said the Congress is no good in the state. “The Congress, which came to power in Karnataka after some BJP leaders were involved in illegal mining, has invited such MLAs into their party fold. Shame on Congress,” he said.