Our electoral system based on adult suffrage, joint electorate and territorial constituencies introduced by Articles 325 and 326 of the Constitution, while being an important educational and democratic factor, has unfortunately in its operation during the last four decades also given rise to certain very undesirable trends in our political system[1]. Political parties play a key role in democratic processes. They are critical to ensuring participation in political life, the expression of the will of the people, and serve a wide range of functions. To fulfil these functions, political parties require financial resources. However, if the funding of political parties and elections is nor properly regulated, this can lead to a dominant party system, where the abuse of public resources by the incumbent ensures their re-election. The question of how to adequately fund democratic political systems and the role that money should play is a particularly vexed issue. It is widely recognized that regulatory provisions alone are insufficient. Further, there are limits to effectively regulating political party financing[2].
The role of money power in elections has become a standard concern in recent discourses on electoral reforms in India. Various commissions have been set up till now, recommending ways and means to regulate the use and abuse of money in election campaigns[3]. Over the years, Indian electoral system suffers from serious infirmities. The election process in our country is the progenitor of political corruption[4].The Supreme Court of India settled the issue of competence of the EC to investigate into campaign spending in Ashok Chavan v. Dr. Madhavrao Kinhalkar (Civil Appeal 5044 of 2014, SLP (C) No.29882 of 2011) through purposive interpretation of the relevant provisions of Representation of the People Act, 1951.
Electoral bonds:
Electoral bonds Scheme was introduced as a new way of funding for the political parties in India in 2017 Finance bill and was notified on Jan 2, 2018. Electoral bond is a bearer instrument, where the ownership of the bond will depend on the possession of the instrument and it is also an interest-free instrument. State Bank of India is the only bank which provides electoral bonds and the same can be issued in multiples of Rs. 1000, Rs. 10,000 Rs. 1,00,000 and Rs. 10,00,000 and also Rs. 1,00,00,000[5]
It can be purchased by a citizen of India, or a business entity incorporated or established in India and the political parties registered under Section 29A of the Representation of People Act, 1951 and those parties who have secured not less than 1% votes in the last Lok Sabha election, or the Legislative Assembly of the State can receive those bonds and the same should be encashed by the particular party with its authorized State Bank Account[6].
Working of the electoral bonds:
The open secret in any democracy is that, no election can be won without money, or at least can’t be fought without it. Electoral politics require money for advertising, campaign, grassroot mobilizations and an election is an expensive spectacle. The electoral bonds basically facilitate political party for its election, through funding they could function appropriately to satisfy the needs of the people. This electoral bond scheme was introduced through a finance bill 2017 amending various acts, it was not less opaque when compared to the cash funding. It was evidently shown that the scheme is biased towards the ruling party and is not transparent. This scheme helps in influx of the black money and can promote money laundering and the said scheme suffers from the constitutionality, and is a threat to wellbeing of the democracy.
Contentions raised: The issues raised were Whether the electoral bond scheme is constitutional, does the electoral bond scheme violate the voters right to information, Can the scheme allow anonymity with the view to protect donors’ right to privacy? Does the electoral bond scheme threaten the democratic process, and free and fair elections? [7]
- Confidentiality and selective anonymity: It is provided that, the information about the donation shall a be confidential. The aspects on who the donor is and to which party is the donor donating shall be confidential. The Issue here is the information truly Confidential. The state bank of India [SBI]as Know your customer deatails{KYC}, shall have all the information of the transaction within its fold, It can be disclosed to courts and other law enforcement agencies. CBI, Enforcement directorate, IT and vigilance departments have the right to know. Hence all the information shall be with the central government, which means the finance minister can have the accessibility to the information and the opposition party lacks. Which in reality bears an impact, the public in a sense of deterrence may not fund the parties other than the ruling ones. It has an evidentiarily proved by the statistics that 95% of the funding goes to the ruling party. Hence, this analysis shows that the scheme lacks high confidentiality but has a selective anonymity.
Transparency and Equality are pillars of democracy. Citizens should have confident of the actions by the government and in order to earn such a trust, the government should be transparent to its citizens. This Scheme is opaque in nature which is basic violation to democracy. Principle of Transparent Political funding which is a bedrock of a responsible democracy is severally affected where, The Scheme is introduced with enactments made in various legislations where the Apex institutions like Election Commission and Reserve Bank of India would not know the source of funding that was received and since it is not accountable, only the donors know if they are donating legitimate money or not. This however, affects the basic rule and principles of democracy where, the winners are the political parties and losers are the citizens of the nation.
- Level playing field:
There is lack of equal opportunity when the scheme is solely benefiting the ruling party and the constitutional provision of free and fair elections is violated. The constitutional right to information is also at stake, because there is a requirement for the citizens to know about the candidates and political parties, for whom they shall vote. The education, the criminal background and case if any of the candidates. In the same manner the source of their election funding should be well known to the public in order to decide their vote. Hence there is no level playing in the scheme and the biggest beneficiary is the ruling party. As per the recent statistics and survey it stats that the BJP party received 5272 crore out of the total 9188 crore making it the biggest beneficiary of the Scheme. The Indian national congress comes second having received, 952 crores, and the rest went to the other parties. The SC argues that, the details should be made public and electoral bonds the Indian constitution. Whereas the government, fiercely defends the scheme stating that, it shall enhance free and fair polls and there is no need for the government to reveal the source of their funding.
- Legalizing Quid pro quo:
The contention put forth here is that will the electoral bonds don’t legalize something for something? Will the government machinery not be influenced in the future, and normalize the corruption and injustice. For instance, In the United States, it the gun lobbying, that constitutes to a major source of the election funding {refile association}. The drug abusers are also allowed to have a legalized gun which shall be a threat at a point of time. The point that was made here is that, there is no guarantee that this scheme of electoral bonds can have an influence on the future policies of the governments,and the central government had no backing answer for the queries raised. For which the Supreme court suggested that, there is a big information hole in the scheme, and the scheme can be made more transparent. Further the submission of the respondents in the “Association for democratic Reforms v Union of India” was that exempting the political parties from sharing details regarding contributions would keep information on foreign funding in the dark. The affidavit stated that the unchecked foreign funding of political parties in India which could lead to Indian Policies being influenced by the foreign companies.
Observation: Electoral bonds were introduced in India for one main reason, to bring transparency and to ensure that donations are accounted for, which helps the government to keep a tab on the black money. Thus, donations now happen through a legitimate channel which makes them legitimate and accountable. Whereas the other side of the coin states that the donations are anonymous and that makes the scheme opaque and in order to bring transparency the donor details must be revealed. The Petitioners argued that, the EBS increased corporate funding, black money circulation and corruption. The judgement was reserved on 2023 November 2nd.
Synthesis: Further there are innumerable drawbacks and setbacks in the election system in India, in the year 2023 November, elections were held across 5 states. Researcher brings into notice the flaws and modes and means to improvise the voting and electoral system in India. The major setback is the low percentage of voting, lesser number of people turning up to vote.
- Voter lists: the voter lists are not perfect, the deceased and migrated are also included in the voter lists, they contribute to the number of voters and they are not the real voters. There is no system to check the voters. On the other side there should be issuance of the notice as a legitimate cause of the removal. Removal of voters should be acknowledged as apart of safety protocol. The voter list should be full proofed.
- Voter logistics: the basic difference in the western and Indian logistics lies in the voters, in western countries it is the most benefited people who participate in the voting. Whereas in India it is the poor, marginalized, illiterates and uneducated who give utmost priority to vote and treat it is as a privilege. The rich leading lavish lives in their drawing rooms, not only bother to utilize their right to vote but also criticize the policies of the government, it should be taken into consideration that without exercising the right to vote, ones shall lack the legitimacy to criticize government policies.
In respect to the facilitations, in order to increase the voter turnout, the election booths should be setup in comfort zones of the public, and voter slips should be issued in advance and free government transportations should be provided by the state on behalf of the election commissions so that public can utilize the free services and get encouraged to cast votes. Students who are part of the NSS and NCC scouts can be employed in order to campaign and motivate the public to actively participate in the elections.
- Political consciousness: In a democratic nation public should be politically inclined as nature of the electoral discourse shall also determine the nature of voting i.e a voter must have the literacy on how the governance can benefit the voters in the following tenure. The nature of political contest should be analyzed by the news platforms and assist the public in decision making.
- Means and modes of Voting: The electronic voting machines [EVMs] should be fully proofed and the technology should be utilized for a more proficient and accurate system of elections. Provisions like Anytime voting could be introduced mobile polling booth should be implement for the benefit of aged and ailing people to cast their votes. It is known that implementing schemes which should be organized for few days continuously demands a lot of man power and security, but it can be acceptable as it shouldn’t cost a democracy. This helps in increasing the voter turnout as in most of the professions the employee and professionals are required to stay out of their constituency and once, they miss out on the day of voting they lose their right to vote. So, this can be a provision which helps the professionals in casing their votes.
- Proximity with the politician: when it is noticed it is evident that the voter turnouts are high in the local elections than the Assembly elections than to the Parliament elections. This can be altered and the public should be motivated though the religious leaders, opinion leaders, community influencers, celebrities and through social media influencers. The political leaders the members of the state legislatives and members of the parliament should have the intimacy and bare minimum acquaintance of the local issues and this develops a sense of trust and knowledge on the government’s machinery and its efficacy.
Conclusion:
In democracy the public is most powerful entity. If the public do not vote in favour of criminals, dishonest and corrupt politicians who wish to purchase their votes by money or muscle powers, everything shall function nicely and the democracy will shine in the dark spectrum of hitherto corrupt and criminalised political system. So, though the EC is working hard in this direction, but it cannot succeed unless all political parties and voters realize their responsibility. Finally, there should be proper mechanism, fully functional and fully equipped to fight with any trivality[9].
Money is essential for mobilizing election campaigns, sustaining political party organisations and communicating with citizens. However, left unregulated, political party finance measures are open to abuse and undue influence by outside groups. It is important to recognise that, in regulating political party financing, there is no onesize-fits-all design. Much will depend upon country-specific factors. Political finance regulations are unlikely to be effective if they exist in isolation (OECD 2016). Rather, “they need to be part of an overall integrity framework that includes the management of conflict of interest and lobbying. On their own, political finance regulations are likely to result merely in the re-channelling of money spent to obtain political influence through lobbying and other activities” (OECD 2016).
Finally, political party finance reforms form part of the bigger “governance puzzle”. Support and reform to political finance regulations needs to be integrated into a wider strategy as a part of the wider political system, including identifying structural constraints and incentives[10]
[1] : Economic and Political Weekly, Jan. 2-9, 1993, Vol. 28, No. 1/2 (Jan. 2-9, 1993), pp. 27-34
[2] U4 Anti-Corruption Helpdesk Transparency in political party finance.
[3] Economic and Political Weekly, Jul. 10-16, 1999, Vol. 34, No. 28 (Jul. 10-16,1999), pp. 1884-1888
[4] The Indian Journal of Political Science, Jan. – March, 2012, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Jan- March, 2012), pp. 167-174
[5] s. 5, The Electoral bond scheme.
[6] s. 3 The Electoral bond scheme.
[7] Writ petition (civil) No.880/2017.
[8] 2021 11 INSC 222 {Writ petition (civil) No.880/2017}
[9] The Indian Journal of Political Science , Jan. – March, 2012, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Jan.- March, 2012), pp. 167-174.
[10]The role of political party finance reform in the transition from dominant to competitive party systems. Transparency international.
Author: Chandanasriya
Juris Centre 