Black economy persists with or without electoral bonds

India's democratic model needs an overhaul so that elections are not an expensive affair. Only that can create a more just, transparent and efficient system, argues Prof. Arun Kumar.

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THE electoral bonds scheme has been declared unconstitutional. Various legislative and administrative amendments, implemented to facilitate the scheme, have also been declared unconstitutional. This is a victory for those opposing this scheme.

The government's argument that the scheme was needed to help reduce the use of black money in elections has not been accepted on grounds of proportionality. The right to privacy of the donors has been held to be less important than the citizens' right to information about the candidate for whom they were voting.

This is a rare judgment in the last few years that has gone against the establishment's view. Judgments such as those on Aadhar, demonetisation and Article 370 sided with the establishment's view even though the court did raise probing questions during the hearings.

Be that as it may, the electoral bonds case was of little consequence for the ruling establishment, even though it has huge significance for transparency and for conducting fair elections.

The court has ordered the revelation of names of the recipients and donors— which entity paid and which party received.

Since a vast majority of the bonds were of denomination ₹1 crore and above, these were bought by the rich to donate to their preferred party. The suspicion has been that these payments were bribes in white, to get favours.

Also read: No bond with Article 19: Supreme Court declares electoral bonds unconstitutional, directs SBI to stop issuing them

There were donations to the opposition parties also but that is an investment in the future, in case a party comes to power. Even if it does not come to power, donations could ensure that the opposition raises inconvenient questions of the government.

The Order to reveal the names is likely to be resisted. An appeal against this could be filed. Attempts will be made to connect donations to the ruling party with favours granted. Donations to the opposition parties that are in power in one state or the other can also be so branded.

But, the ruling party at the Union level is the one that can grant big favours and it has received the vast majority of the bonds. How does all this link up to black money?

Elections and black money

In India, huge sums of money are spent on fighting elections. These are way above the election expenditure limits set by the Election Commission of India (ECI), hence illegal.

If these are declared by the candidates, their election will be annulled. So all expenses above the election expenditure limit have to be funded illegally— by black funds.

Election expenditure limits are now ₹95 lakh and ₹70 lakh for a parliamentary constituency and ₹40 lakh and ₹28 lakh for assembly elections. Actual election expenditures are unofficially reported to be around ₹40 crore for a parliamentary constituency and ₹6 crore for an assembly constituency. The actual numbers for a parliamentary and assembly election are respectively 40 and 15 times the allowed limit.

The reason for the high expense by candidates is the need for high-power campaigns to overwhelm the citizens to stand a chance to win. Expenses are on maintaining vote banks, bribing voters in cash and kind, hiring workers and musclemen, paying for crowds for rallies and meetings, spending on cutouts and posters, paying media for coverage, etc., and disrupting the opponents' campaign. These are all substitutes for a lack of adequate attention to constituencies.

Also read: Donor anonymity versus voters' right to know: Supreme Court reserves judgment in electoral bonds case

Effectively, the expenditure of large sums in elections reflects the weakness of Indian democracy. The public votes for reasons other than the hard work and honesty of candidates.

Instead, candidates have to entice the voters with bribes of various kinds. Also, India is largely feudal, so the public is guided either by those in authority or by emotional issues and not by individual self-interest.

Finally, issues have become complex and the public's understanding is minimal, which also prevents questioning of authorities. Many can be heard saying, 'Voting for a losing candidate is wasting the vote.'

The consideration is not a better representation but who appears to be more likely to win irrespective of what they stand for.

Electoral bonds and black money

Electoral bonds were donated to a political party and not a candidate. So the money went to the party. Since there is no limit on expenditure by a political party, it can get all it needs in white and spend it.

If a part of the donation was given to the candidates then the expenditure would be reduced to come under the ceiling set by the law. So the parties did not need to give the money raised through electoral bonds to the candidates and instead could spend it entirely on a general campaign, organised centrally.

If all the money raised via the bonds was to be given to the candidates, then only ₹95 lakh per candidate could be given for a parliamentary constituency. So, for a parliamentary election, the party would at most need ₹513 crore. But the ruling party has been getting more than a thousand crore rupees per annum since 2019.

Obviously, the money received was used for other purposes, such as setting up offices, running them, logistics and social media cells.

Political parties also engineer defections, topple opposition governments and so on. This cannot be done via legitimate money and requires black money which is donated in cash by the backers of the party.

Also read: Electoral bonds: A landmark judgment in the direction of free and fair elections 

This money cannot be shown on the balance sheet of the parties and cannot be caught in an audit of the accounts of the party or the candidates. The ECI cannot catch it.

Businesses in India know how to manipulate incomes and expenditures outside their balance sheets to generate black incomes. Under- and over-invoicing and hawala are used for these purposes.

These methods keep one step ahead of the changes the tax authorities make in the laws and rules with the help of income tax lawyers and chartered accountants. Such methods are also available to political parties and candidates for their financial accounting so that they do not get caught using black funds.

So, apart from the funds made available by the electoral bonds, the parties and the individual candidates continued to use black funds. Thus, the non-availability of funds from electoral bonds will hardly change the funding pattern of the parties and there will be no impact on individual candidates.

In brief, funds received via the electoral bonds were: a) In addition to the money received in black and, b) The amount received was small compared to the total requirement.

What to do?

The use of black funds in elections reinforces illegality in society and thereby undermines representation and democracy. Parties and individual candidates who accept large sums of black money are indebted to the donors and do their bidding when they get into power.

This is the implicit and explicit understanding between the two parties. A nexus forms. Outwardly, parties and candidates make a show of wanting to curb the use of illegal funds but that is not the reality.

Also read: Electoral bonds: No solution to illegal political funding

Democracy gets diminished when people vote for the corrupt who largely appear at the time of elections and make promises that they do not deliver on once in power.

People do not get genuine representation from their representatives who serve the interests of a few powerful entities. But people are helpless since the candidates put up by the parties for elections are all similar— they are beholden to the vested interests and do their bidding once they come to power.

Politics will be cleaned up if the public does not get swayed by emotionalism, sectarianism, etc., and voted on objective factors impacting them.

Currently existing parties and candidates are unlikely to change, so new parties are needed that have dedicated workers. Citizens have to become politically savvy to look after their long-term interests.

Since this would undermine the current ruling parties, they will create impediments to the emergence of new parties and honest candidates. The entire State machinery is available to them to coerce and harass and defeat their opponents.

Conclusion

In brief, it is not that in a robust democracy, elections need to be expensive. It is in the imperfect democracy that prevails in India where accountability is weak that elections become expensive.

In such a situation, an instrumentality such as the electoral bonds adds to non-transparency without impacting the black economy or the use of black funds in elections.

Actually, to survive, the black economy needs to control politics so that dishonest parties and candidates come to power.