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FM Nirmala Sitharaman

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BJP will bring back electoral

bonds if re-elected: Nirmala
Sitharaman
Written by : TNM Staff

Published: 20th Apr, 2024 at 1:34 PM

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.

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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.

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