Cong dubs electoral bond as ‘money whitening’ tool

New Delhi The Congress on Friday lambasted the BJP government at the Centre over the Electoral Bond Scheme and called it a "money whitening" scheme, used by the current dispensation to convert black money into white.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters here, Congress leader Pawan Khera alleged that the saffron party received funds through electoral bonds to the tune of Rs 5,271.97 crore between 2016-17 to 2021-22.

Quoting the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) report, he said, "More than 52 per cent of BJP’s political donations, worth Rs 5,271.97 crore, came from electoral bonds as against Rs 1,783.93 crore received by all other national political parties, between FY 2016-17 and FY 2021-22." The Congress leader said that this effectively implies that Modi government's controversial, corrupt and contrived electoral bonds scheme is a money whitening scheme, which converts black money to white.

It is a perfect way of legitimate, state-sponsored rent seeking and corruption, he added. In the 2019 Lok Sabha manifesto and the 85th Plenary Session in Raipur held earlier this year, the grand-old party had promised to scrap the opaque Electoral Bond Scheme that is designed to favour the ruling party.

"Instead, we have promised to set up a National Election Fund to which any person may contribute. Funds will be allocated at the time of elections to recognised political parties in accordance with criteria laid down by law," Khera said.

He also said that Congress believes that the electoral bond scheme results in the financial monopoly of the ruling party on electoral funding and is a detrimental to create a level-playing field, which is a prerequisite of a thriving democracy. "But Modi government has made ‘Electoral Bond Scheme’ a lovechild of corruption and crony capitalism, stigmatizing our ‘mother of democracy’," he alleged.