Political Scams - Party funding & Electoral bonds in India.

Being a democratic country, India is a political hub of various parties. Each of the parties try to convince the voters to bring them into power. For making it possible they are ready to spend huge amount of money. Infact, a lot money is required to run a political party. This is such a costly affair that even to lose the election it take millions of amount. There are various types of expenses involved in running a political party. Expenses like transport, rallies, food and drinks for workers or merchandise and gifts items etc are intgral part of main expenses. And also, buying votes by giving differrnt things at the time of elections are a major components. These are extra cost that are beared by the political parties. These activities are carried out in large scale throughout the country, which made it a costly affair for the political party. If I take an example of last election in India, around 60,000 crores of Indian rupee were spend on it. India stands at number one, in election spending all over the world.

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Sources of Party funding

Noone ever question the political parties for the source of these funds. These political parties did not manufacture or produce anything, nor did they do any invention on the basis of which they get money. Then the question that alwsys arises, from where theese political parties get their money or from where these money comes from ??

Political leaders are not bringing in their own fund to invest in politics by selling their land or property. This males it very clewr that, these poilitical parties are indirectly using the money of the common public.

The money, through which the roads could be built in the country, or could have spend on medical facilities or improve the education system. The political parties are utilising those money in distributing customised t shirts or caps to public.

"Quid pro co"

Suppose, a person has loads of money, and we want to donate the money, then whether you will donate that money to any old age home or child care or donate it on any political parties. ?? You can ask anyone around you no one wants to give anything except abusing these political parties.

Yet between 2018 and 2019, these political partolies have received a whopping donation of 951 crore within just one year. And that too when the details of donor cannot be known. In India, it is a common prsctices that If someone, donates a fan in any temple, then they write the names in capital letters. And in here, without any credit , crores of rupees are being donated unanimously.

Donation to political parties works on "quid pro co" method. Which simply states, give with one hand and take with the others. These political parties first spoil the system. And then does not allow the system to work properly. And then take money for getting people works done within the system. They termed this system, as #fundraising, or #partyfunding. Noone wants to run a business by making the party angry. When the big business houses make donation to these political parties they get favor in return.

According to them the rules are formed and no matter, which party every party has this framework to earn money. Therefore when these political parties send their supporters to take money from them, they do not have any option to deny them. The Second things these leaders have made such rules that you get many legal benefits from donating money to them.

Suppose you have a business, and earns 5 lacs in a year. The btax on the earning comes down to 25k. If we donate 25k to any political parties then we get an exemption of 100% which made not to pay any tax. In addition, we get the protection from these leaders. And various rules were implemented, in their favor, according the level of donation money. At the same time, if you donate to any religious or NGO, we will get a 50 % discount. And we will be liable to pay tax on the 50 % with no additional benefits.

There is no limit in donating to the political parties. The limit is in the leaders. You can give as much amount to the political party. Then the party will decide, accordingly how much money will be spend and on which leaders. According to the election commission of India, no leader can spend more then 70 lakhs. Our constitution say, that the leaders needs money to reach to the people of the whole country. To keep their points, to reach his manifesto to the people. Because this could happen, that if someone is a good leader, but due to lack of money his words could not reach to the people. That is why, our constitution has allowed funding. But instead of telling their points of views to the people, the leaders use this money to distribute it in liquor, and distributing various things to buy votes. And this is the reason, India being number 1 in spending money in the election.

Black Money & Electrolal bonds.

Before 2017, if a person wants to donate less than 20k to any party, then they do not need to give any details. This make the use of black money into political funding. And most of the donation were carried out in cash. In 2017, the elctoral bonds were introduced. The government said this will leand to transparency and the source of black money will end. In electoral bonds, if a persin have to donate to any political party, and it is less than 2k , then they can give it to the political party in #cash. But, if it is more than 2k, then the person needs to give details. Suppose, a person have to give Rs.100k to their favourite party, then they have to visit the bank branch, fill in the form, and the amount of donation will be deducted from the account and the person will get the #bond. In the next 15 days, the person can give that bond to any political party.*

The government says that the details of whosoever takes the bond will not be mentioned in the bonds. And no poiltitical party an know, who and how much and at which party the donation has been given.

But the problem, occurred, when #Quint, get the bond tested in the labs. They found the presence of alpha numeric codes. No political party have any answer to these codes. It is to be noted that the KYC was done at the bank ends, so all the details remain with the bank. And the ruling party, can take details from the bank whenever they want. While the government is insisting that the proces will remove the use of black money. But the r
Reserve bank of India and Election commission saying that this will increase the usage of the black money.

Recently, this has been a hot topic of discussion in Indian politics. As per the report around 95 % of bonds money were utilised by the ruling party. This makes the source of the funding very unclear. And the influence of black money is still in question.

Politics has always been a dirty pons and the way, these political party spending the money on conducting election and party funding rather than carrying out development works in the country. It is evidient, that the genrsl public remain a puppet at the hand of these parties. Public needed to be more informed for carrying out meaningful election.

This is my Day 26 entry for Inleo Writing prompt for the m/o March.

Peace!!

Namaste @steemflow

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