We don't know who funds BJP, Congress, but public has to go through demonetisation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have hit the public approval jackpot with his latest announcement: he has asked all Bharatiya Janata Party MPs and MLAs to submit details of their bank account transactions from November 8 onwards, to party national president Amit Shah. The Modi government, whose demonetisation drive has been heavily criticised for being a planning and execution failure, recently came under additional fire, this time accused of buying several land parcels in Bihar and Odisha just prior to the announcement of the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 ban. 

This comes in addition to the Income Tax Amendment Bill, introduced in Parliament, for people to declare their black money. The bill proposes to levy a 50 per cent penalty on the sum declared, and use 25 per cent over and above that amount in an interest-free deposit scheme that will be locked in for four years and would be used for supposed welfare programmes initiated by the central government. Anyone declaring their black money through this scheme will be left with 25 per cent of their money in white.

The IT Amendment Bill, too, has been accused of being a means to save BJP members and and help retain their “ill-gotten” wealth by converting it into white money. Modi’s opportune move to increase trust and transparency within the party has thus been hailed far and wide.

But the wealth transparency of BJP members is not enough in itself as it manages to ignore one very important source of money in political parities: campaign contributions, especially those received from unknown sources.

According to the Section 29C of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951, political parties are bound by law to disclose any contribution in excess of Rs 20,000 received from any person or company in that financial year, along with the name and address of the said contributor. Anyone contributing less than Rs 20,000 in campaign finance gets marked as an unknown source. 

The data-journalism website Factly.in prepared a report on the amount of finance received by national parties in India from unknown sources. According to their report, the Bharatiya Janta Party (India’s ruling party) declared an income of Rs 977 crore from unknown sources from 2013 to 2015. The Indian National Congress party, on the other hand, declared Rs 969 crore. The Bahujan Samaj Party declared Rs 141 crore, CPI (M) Rs 120 crore, the NCP Rs 68 crore and the CPI just Rs 30,000.

Despite being well within the legality, this provision in the law that allows parties to not disclose the source if funds below Rs 20,000 makes room for embezzelment and hiding money from questionable sources. The Aam Aadmi Party created an example by disclosing the source of their entire campaign finance. While for a small election, that is an easier list to examine. But when you compare that to national parties like the BJP and Congress, things get a little more difficult. 

It comes as no surprise that BJP has the highest amount of income from undisclosed sources, given the party’s immense amount of popularity. But judging from the amounts received by both the Congress and BJP, is it time to reassess whether this income too should be held completely accountable?

Watch the full video here:

Also read - Where farmers are committing suicide, a lesson in what women can do