New Delhi: The government on Thursday approved the issuance of the 19th installment of electoral bonds. Bonds can be issued and redeemed from January 1 to January 10. This approval has been given before the assembly elections to be held in five states.
In an effort to bring transparency in political donations, arrangements for electoral bonds have been made as an alternative to cash donations to political parties. However, opposition parties have been raising concerns about the alleged lack of transparency in donations through such bonds.
“The State Bank of India (SBI) has been authorized to issue and encash Electoral Bonds through its 29 authorized branches between January 10 and January 10, 2022,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
These 29 exclusive branches of SBI are in cities like Lucknow, Shimla, Dehradun, Kolkata, Guwahati, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Patna, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Srinagar, Gandhinagar, Bhopal, Raipur and Mumbai.
Assembly elections are due in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Goa next year.
The sale of electoral bonds in the first phase took place from March 1 to 10, 2018. The sale of the 18th installment of the bond took place on 1-10 September 2021.
As per the provisions of the Scheme, Electoral Bonds can be purchased by any person who is a citizen of India or is a company incorporated or established in India.
Only such registered political parties will be eligible to receive electoral bonds, which have secured at least one percent of the votes polled in the last general election to the Lok Sabha or to the State Legislative Assembly.
According to news agency PTI, SBI is the only authorized bank to issue such bonds.
The electoral bond will be valid for 15 days from the date of issue. According to the statement, no payment will be made to any recipient or political party on deposit of the bond after the expiry of the validity period.
The bond deposited by any eligible political party in its account will be credited on the same day.
It is to be known that in order to implement the electoral bond scheme, the Modi government had amended various laws in the year 2017.
The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a non-governmental organization working towards electoral reforms, has challenged these amendments in the Supreme Court. However, this hearing has been continuously postponed for many times.
These amendments have opened doors for unlimited political donations from foreign companies and legitimized large-scale electoral corruption, the petition said. Also, there is complete opacity in such political donations.
In the year 2019, there were many revelations regarding electoral bonds, in which it was revealed that RBI, Election Commission, Law Ministry, RBI Governor, Chief Election Commissioner and many political parties had written to the central government and objected to the scheme.
However, the Finance Ministry rejected all these objections and passed the electoral bond scheme.
In the matter of electoral bonds, the BJP involved in the central government has benefited the most.
In the year 2018-19, 60 percent of the total donations to the BJP were received from electoral bonds. Due to this, the BJP had earned a total income of Rs 1,450 crore. At the same time, in the financial year 2017-2018, the BJP had announced to receive donations of Rs 210 crore from electoral bonds.
(with input from news agency language)
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