BJP will bring back electoral bonds if re-elected: Nirmala Sitharaman

Showering praises on the Electoral Bond scheme that was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will bring back electoral bonds in some form if the party is re-elected in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. She also said that it has not yet been decided whether the Union government will seek a review of the Supreme Court verdict. 

In an interview to the Hindustan Times, Nirmala said, “What electoral bonds brought in was transparency. What prevailed earlier was just free-for-all. We still have a lot of consultation to do with stakeholders. We have to see what we have to do to make or bring in a framework that will be acceptable to all, primarily retain the level of transparency and remove black money from the equation.”  

Speaking to India Today, Union Home Minister Amit Shah also said that the absence of electoral bonds would increase cash donations, which will make people realise that electoral bonds were a good method for political funding and that whatever negatives it had could have been fixed easily. 

Responding to a question whether the BJP will bring back electoral bonds, Amit Shah said, “We are not saying that we will bring any bill but some solution has to be found for this because we are not in favour of political funding being in cash. It was a promise made by the BJP and Narendra Modi since 2014 that we will remove the influence of black money in politics.”

The Supreme Court had dismissed the Union government’s claim that the scheme was meant to stop the flow of black money into elections. Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud asked the Union government how the absolute non-disclosure of the sources of political funding introduced in the electoral bonds scheme could help in preventing black money. 

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said the issue has not caused a setback to the BJP and that those making an issue out of it will regret it. He claimed that the trail of funds given to political parties during elections could not be traced before 2014, and that it was because of him that the details of who bought the bonds, where it went, and how it was spent could be accessed by the public. 

However, it was after the Supreme Court ordered the State Bank of India (SBI) to disclose information on both the buyers and the beneficiaries of the bonds that the details of who bought the bond and whom they paid was made public. The Union government had maintained that citizens have no right to know about political funding.