[Marxistindia] SC Towards Transparency in Corporate Election Funding

[news from the cpi(m)]

April 12, 2019

 

Press Statement

 

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the
following statement:

 

SC Towards Transparency in Corporate Election Funding

 

The Polit Bureau notes positively the interim order passed by the Supreme
Court on the electoral bond scheme initiated by the Modi government.  

 

The PB notes that the changes in the law which was rushed without a proper
and comprehensive discussion in the Parliament was aimed at removing the
limits of corporate funding of political parties, particularly at the time
of elections, while making it completely anonymous.  The changes would have
made the entire system prone to crony capitalism with a clear basis for quid
pro quo with the ruling party.  That the government was dead opposed to
making funding transparent was clear from the submission of the Attorney
General in the apex court when he said: "It is not voters' concern to know
where the money comes from. Transparency cannot be looked as a mantra of the
country."

 

Today's interim judgment has brought in some degree of accountability by
making it mandatory for the political parties to place their collection from
electoral bonds and the details thereof to the Election Commission by May 30
in a sealed envelope.  

 

The interim order promised that the seriousness of the issue and its bearing
on the very nature of our democracy warrants more in-depth examination.

 

The Polit Bureau notes positively that the interim order itself demolishes
the stance taken by the Prime Minister Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
and the BJP, which had pushed this as a money bill for the opaque and secret
electoral bonds.  The court has clearly stated transparency is the basic
principle of electoral funding.  People have the right to know which party
has received how much and from whom.

 

The Polit Bureau expresses satisfaction that this legal battle, where the
CPI(M) itself is a petitioner, has yielded some positive result as of now
and also reiterates its resolve to carry on the battle for making electoral
funding  completely transparent and free of corporate influence towards
breaking the corporate-ruling party nexus.

 

 

 

(Hari Singh Kang)

For CPI(M) Central Committee Office

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://cpim.org/pipermail/marxistindia_cpim.org/attachments/20190412/fb57e1ae/attachment.html>