Transparency in electoral funding 💥
Credits :- Aman
💥 Transparency in electoral funding 💥
Political parties require financial back up to cover the cost of advertisements and other miscellaneous expenditures incurred by their parties during elections. The Election commission has laid a cap on expenditure by individual candidates during elections. A candidate is allowed to spend upto Rs 70 lakh in Lok sabha constituencies and Rs 28 lakh in state assemblies elections. However, the fixed cap laid by EC appears quite irrelevant when we consider that Rs 35000 crore was spent in 2014 Lok sabha elections, though the official estimate was just Rs 7000-8000 crore, which suggests the balance Rs 27000 crore was unaccounted money; this is nothing short of a mockery of democracy and a blot on fair and transparent elections. This huge inflow of unaccounted money into election reduces the electoral process to a mere show of strength of money and power.
Primary methods of funding of political parties include Individual funding, Funding by Trusts, Corporate funding, Foreign funding and public funding; donation by people during rallies, relief funds, sale of coupons and other miscellaneous fundings. What stands out in most of these methods is the unaccountability i.e who’s the donor, to whom the donor (individual political figure or party) is donating to, what’s the amount involve ;all these facts remain shrouded in secrecy making the whole process of electoral funding intransparent. That in turn leads to mistrust among the general masses about election process as a whole which is not an encouraging sign for the largest democracy in the world.Corporate houses, businessmen use corporate funding to flush the black money as donations to political parties. Besides, more the funding, the more the party becomes obligated to return favour if and when it comes to power which can only lead to gross misadministration. Every time before elections, whether State Assembly or General elections, lakhs and crores of unaccounted cash (which are used by political parties to buy votes, spend on luring voters) are recovered from several places.
ECI on its part has taken several steps to make the process of funding transparent, latest of which includes the “Electoral Bonds” launched last year where an individual or a group of people can buy bonds from designated branches of SBI and donate it to political parties which can encash those bonds in their designated accounts. This may be step forward in getting rid of black money as donations are mostly made in cash and also due to KYC process,bonds can be trailed. But more such steps are required in this direction like a specified bank account, donation only by digital means etc and finally bringing it all under the the ambit of RTI(Right to Information) which can prove to be the most effective tool in making the process of electoral funding in India transparent and fair.
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For SBI PO MAINS DESCRIPTIVE PREPARATION
💥 Transparency in electoral funding 💥
Political parties require financial back up to cover the cost of advertisements and other miscellaneous expenditures incurred by their parties during elections. The Election commission has laid a cap on expenditure by individual candidates during elections. A candidate is allowed to spend upto Rs 70 lakh in Lok sabha constituencies and Rs 28 lakh in state assemblies elections. However, the fixed cap laid by EC appears quite irrelevant when we consider that Rs 35000 crore was spent in 2014 Lok sabha elections, though the official estimate was just Rs 7000-8000 crore, which suggests the balance Rs 27000 crore was unaccounted money; this is nothing short of a mockery of democracy and a blot on fair and transparent elections. This huge inflow of unaccounted money into election reduces the electoral process to a mere show of strength of money and power.
Primary methods of funding of political parties include Individual funding, Funding by Trusts, Corporate funding, Foreign funding and public funding; donation by people during rallies, relief funds, sale of coupons and other miscellaneous fundings. What stands out in most of these methods is the unaccountability i.e who’s the donor, to whom the donor (individual political figure or party) is donating to, what’s the amount involve ;all these facts remain shrouded in secrecy making the whole process of electoral funding intransparent. That in turn leads to mistrust among the general masses about election process as a whole which is not an encouraging sign for the largest democracy in the world.Corporate houses, businessmen use corporate funding to flush the black money as donations to political parties. Besides, more the funding, the more the party becomes obligated to return favour if and when it comes to power which can only lead to gross misadministration. Every time before elections, whether State Assembly or General elections, lakhs and crores of unaccounted cash (which are used by political parties to buy votes, spend on luring voters) are recovered from several places.
ECI on its part has taken several steps to make the process of funding transparent, latest of which includes the “Electoral Bonds” launched last year where an individual or a group of people can buy bonds from designated branches of SBI and donate it to political parties which can encash those bonds in their designated accounts. This may be step forward in getting rid of black money as donations are mostly made in cash and also due to KYC process,bonds can be trailed. But more such steps are required in this direction like a specified bank account, donation only by digital means etc and finally bringing it all under the the ambit of RTI(Right to Information) which can prove to be the most effective tool in making the process of electoral funding in India transparent and fair.
JOIN :- @bhawna_weekly_quiz_pdf
For SBI PO MAINS DESCRIPTIVE PREPARATION
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