Ahmedabad: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said it is not possible to run a political party without money and the Center had launched the electoral bond scheme with “good intentions”. This scheme brought by the Central Government in 2017 has been canceled by the Supreme Court, calling it unconstitutional. The senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said that if the Supreme Court gives any further instructions on this matter, then all political parties need to sit together and discuss it.
He made these comments at an event organized by a media organization at Gift City near Gandhinagar on Friday. On a question about electoral bonds, Gadkari said, “When Arun Jaitley was the Union Finance Minister, I was part of the talks related to electoral bonds. No party can run without resources. In some countries, governments donate money to political parties. There is no such system in India, so we chose this system of financing political parties.
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He said that the main objective behind introducing electoral bonds was that political parties should receive donations directly but the names of the donors should not be disclosed because “if the ruling party changes, problems will arise.” The Road Transport and Highways Minister said. Said that just as a media house needs sponsors to finance a program, similarly political parties also need money.
Gadkari said, “You need to see the ground reality. How will the parties fight the elections? We had brought the system of electoral bonds to bring transparency. When we brought electoral bonds, our intentions were good. If the Supreme Court finds shortcomings in it and asks us to improve it, then all parties will sit together and discuss it unanimously.
It is noteworthy that in a historic decision last week, the Supreme Court canceled the electoral bond scheme before the Lok Sabha elections to be held in April-May. The court said that this plan violates the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression as well as the right to information.
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Tags: Electoral Bond, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari
FIRST PUBLISHED: March 23, 2024, 11:05 IST