The colour of polls

PM’S move against black money prepares the ground for reforms of electoral finance

A SERIES OF new and dramatic developments have brought centre-stage the long discussed — and long evaded — subject of electoral reforms.

It all started with the prime minister calling for the need for simultaneous elections in view of the overwhelming costs and dislocations of normal life. As the debate on this issue was still hotting up, he came up with the surprise announcement of demonetisation of currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 denominations. While his stated objective was to root out the monster of black money from the economy, many critics saw in it an attempt to turn into junk the sackfuls of currency notes with the Opposition parties. I, for one, find it a great move as far as the role of black money in elections is concerned.

All political parties use black money to finance their campaigns and to bribe voters. Earlier, it used to be just a few days before the elections, but ever since the Election Commission of India (ECI) put together expenditure control mechanisms in 2010, followed by a crackdown on unaccounted money as soon as the model code comes into play, political parties changed their strategy and advanced the activity by a few weeks. Since elections to five state assemblies are round the corner, this is the time when the money would have been moving. The exact impact, however, would be known during and after the elections.

Some subsequent developments, even if not originally intended, also have a bearing on electoral reforms. After demonetisation threw up huge logistical challenges, the government’s campaigns to promote e-banking, e-wallet etc have come on everybody’s lips. This, again, is a positive development. When even a rickshaw puller or vegetable seller is told to stop cash transactions, the exemption of donations to political parties below Rs 20,000 from the “by cheque only” regulation must also be dispensed with straight away. This will take care of the non-transparency of 80 per cent of political funding which all political parties have shown as cash donations. This amounts to an average Rs 1,000 crore per year.

The third development is the PM’S directive to his party legislators to disclose all their bank transactions since November 8. Many