The parliament saw a ruckus in its Thursday session when many members of the Congress party staged a walkout from the Lower House over the issue of electoral bonds. The matter was raised during the Zero Hour by MP Manish Tewari.
Congress MP Manish Tewari in Lok Sabha: I want to draw the attention of the House towards electoral bonds. The electoral bond scheme was limited to elections. RTI in 2018 reveled that government overruled Reserve Bank of India on electoral bonds. pic.twitter.com/URRwEqOppc
— ANI (@ANI) November 21, 2019
The MPs from the grand old party cited that the electoral bonds are non-transparent in nature. Previously, Reserve Bank Of India has also said a similar thing. Alleging the misuse of electoral bonds, Congress leader Manish Tewari said that the electoral bond scheme has only institutionalized “government corruption.”
The leader also said that despite the objection of both the RBI and the Election Commission of India, the Union government brought out such a scheme. He alleged three major anonymity issues with the scheme.
1. The name of the donor is not known.
2. The money given is not known.
3. To whom it is given is not known.
After a while, Speaker Om Birla promised that he would take the matter seriously. The Congress leaders then resumed their protest on the issue and staged a walkout. Senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad also said that the scheme of electoral bonds has resulted in money laundering. The party termed the bonds as a “political bribery scheme“.
Responding to this, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is running a clean government. The leader also attacked back on the Congress party accusing them of coming every day with an adjournment motion to disrupt the house.
The party also expressed its dissatisfaction with the government’s decision to privatize some of the big public sector enterprises such as Bharat Petroleum and others.
Electoral Bonds-
These bonds are instruments/securities on the lines of bearer bonds or promissory notes that will be used to donate funds to the political parties. These bonds will be issued by notified banks. Anyone willing to donate to the registered parties can approach these banks and purchase the bonds.
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