Chief Election Commissioner Rajeev Kumar today said the commission was in favor of ‘complete transparency’ in the funding of political parties, but people who contribute to parties should not be harassed.He was commenting on the prohibition of electoral bonds by the Supreme Court of India.”In a democracy, there is no space for hiding things,” he said. However, he said he was not in favor of moving the funding of political parties underground, as had been the case.”How we control donation in unaccounted-for money is something the entire nation has to work on. How donor’s privacy is protected and he’s not harassed..” he said.The comments come in the wake of a Supreme Court judgment that outlawed electoral bonds.The bonds were introduced by the Modi government in 2017 as a way for companies to send money to political parties without having to resort to ‘black money’.It assures 100% transparency to companies and individuals who send money to parties.However, the scheme was questioned for ‘legalizing corruption’. It was alleged that many companies — particularly those that vie for government contracts or function in highly regulated sectors of the economy — are using electoral bonds to bribe the party in power.A recent analysis of electoral bonds data by had found that most of the large contributions to political parties did indeed come from companies that depend on government contracts and those that function in heavily regulated sectors.
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