The scrapping of the electoral bonds – in a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in February – is a decision “everyone will regret when there is honest reflection” and has “completely pushed the country towards black money”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told news agency ANI Monday.
The Prime Minister said the electoral bonds scheme launched by his government was meant to fight the use of ‘black money’, referring to unaccounted cash or funds from criminal activities, in election campaigns, and that he had “never claimed this was an absolute way” to achieve that goal.
Mr Modi also attacked the opposition for spreading “lies” about the bonds and said his government had introduced the scheme to reduce the use of ‘black money’ during elections. He countered criticism – that his Bharatiya Janata Party was the single-largest beneficiary, to the tune of thousands of crores, by pointing out the opposition, combined, got nearly two-thirds of the total amount.
“There has been a discussion in our country for a long time… that black money allows for dangerous games to be played during elections. That money is spent in elections… no one denies. My party also spends… all parties and all candidates spend, and this money is taken from the people. I wanted to try something… how can our elections be free from this black money? How can there be transparency for people giving donations? This was a pure thought in my mind,” the PM said.
“We were looking for a way. We found a small way… never claimed this was absolute,” he said.
The electoral bonds scheme – which was supposed to allow private individuals and corporates to make completely anonymous donations to any political party (previously anonymity was limited to donations below the Rs 2,000-mark) – was struck down by the Supreme Court in February.
A bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud ruled the scheme unconstitutional on two counts – it violated the people’s right to information and the right to equality. The court directed the State Bank of India (the sole sales point for the bonds) to release data about buyers and beneficiaries.
The data so revealed the BJP was the largest beneficiary of electoral bonds (bought by corporate entities) between April 2019 and January 2024; companies donated Rs 5,594 crore in that period.
The BJP pocketed over three times the amount (Rs 1,592 crore) the Trinamool Congress took home and more than four times the amount donated to its arch-rivals Congress (Rs 1,351 crore).
The Prime Minister, meanwhile, also referred to his government’s decision to withdraw Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000 currency notes from circulation – a decision was fiercely criticised by the opposition – as another attempt to fight the spread of ‘black money’ during election campaigns.
“These notes were moved in large quantities during elections, so we took this step so ‘black money’ ends,” he told ANI, pointing out that political parties were earlier allowed cash donations up to Rs 20,000. Mr Modi said he limited this to Rs 2,500 as he did not want “this cash business” to go on.
“I remember in the nineties… BJP faced a lot of problems. There was no money as we had this rule. Those wanting to give did not have courage to do so…I was aware of all this. Now see, if there was no electoral bond, which system has power to find out the money came and where it went,” he said.
“This is the success story of electoral bonds, there were electoral bonds, so you are getting a trail which company gave, how it gave, where it gave. Whether what happened in the process was good or bad can be an issue of debate…” Mr Modi explained to ANI.
NDTV is now available on WhatsApp channels. Click on the link to get all the latest updates from NDTV on your chat.
