Funding for elections has always been a contentious subject. A democracy demands transparency at every step to ensure that elections are free and fair, but the submission of expenditure accounts after each election seldom reflects a candidate’s expenses, which are fixed, let alone a political party’s, which are not. The introduction of electoral bonds through the Finance Act of 2017 by the Narendra Modi-led government dropped the claim to transparency entirely. With corporate bodies and other entities funding political parties through banks, there can be no outside scrutiny of the donors of each party and no accounts to be rendered to the public. It is as unknowable as the PM Cares fund. Besides, foreign funds, which would normally be regulated or barred by law, can flow in through electoral bonds. The scheme is integrally related to the democratic process. Its opacity overturns democratic principles, quietly cocks a snook at existing law and blocks the voter’s right to know.

The knowledge of candidates’ backgrounds, including criminal charges, has been made mandatory. The government feels that this right is enough for citizens; they need not know about the funding of parties or candidates. This would constitute a ‘reasonable’ restriction to fundamental rights as inscribed in Article 19(2) of the Constitution. The funding is made through banks: it is thus tax-compliant, neither is it illegal. There is a quibble in the reasoning here, since laws are made by legislators, as was that regarding electoral bonds. If it is a law Parliament passed, it cannot be illegal. Or can it? Such funding is supposedly not impinging on any rights either. Yet the reason in the ‘reasonable’ restriction to citizens’ right to information is not clear. Why should the public be barred from scrutinising where a candidate’s funds are coming from? That should be a major step towards clean governance surely? And this resistance to transparency does impinge on people’s freedom not just to know, but also to make a fully informed choice of candidate and party. It is as important as knowing the criminal background of a candidate, because the routes of money and the paths of crime have occasionally been seen to run close. Political funding is not alien to the dispensing of favours either; all of these corrode the substance of democratic rights and rule.