Poll bonds' benefits are not quite clear

The benefits that may accrue to the polity as a consequence of the realisation of the electoral bonds scheme — announced in the 2017-18 Budget speech by finance minister Arun Jaitley — can be said to be speculative at best. The scheme was notified on Tuesday when Mr Jaitley made a statement in Parliament.

The biggest pitch most senior leaders of the government had made as leading Opposition figures before May 2014 was to accuse the previous Manmohan Singh government of being ridden with corruption, and on that basis rode to office as messiahs of change. (Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal rode to power on the same horse.) To this end, the Narendra Modi government has made ringing pronouncements on the steps it has purportedly taken to bring about systemic change.

However, any concrete gain has been elusive even in respect of the most energetically announced schemes — such as steps taken to bring back black money from abroad so that Rs 15 lakhs could be credited to every Indian’s bank account, a poll campaign promise of Mr Modi as he sought to persuade us that “achche din”, or brighter days, were around the corner.

Apparently perceiving that this particular promise wasn’t believed any more, Mr Modi gave us demonetisation. This turned out to be an albatross around the country’s neck. Although the BJP made electoral gains due to it (such as in Uttar Pradesh), the economy faced a setback and ordinary workers and small businessmen in the unorganised sector found themselves pushed to the wall. The much-touted 2G spectrum corruption scandal has also been dismissed by the court.

Just around three months after the Prime Minister announced demonetisation, the finance minister declared his intention through the Budget speech to clean up political financing with the introduction of electoral bonds. Under the scheme, cash donations to political parties were deemed to have been stopped.
Prospective donors will be required to buy interest-free electoral bonds of designated denominations which they will forward to the parties of their choice.

The donors’ identity won’t be revealed to beneficiaries. Mr Jaitley says this is needed to discourage cash donations. He does not say why and how. In any case, it’s far from certain why cash donations will cease as the place of cash in the economic system remains as dominant as before demonetisation and “black money” continues to be generated.

A former chief election commissioner has told this newspaper that whatever little transparency existed in party donations before the coming of election bonds will now disappear since parties will not make any disclosure of cash receipts as they have no incentive to do so. This is an issue the government should pay serious attention to. The way things are, the new scheme sounds more propaganda than anything else.