Electoral Bonds A Disaster For Public Transparency: Milan Vaishnav
How will civil society or the media follow the money trail of electoral bonds?
The Narendra Modi government’s proposal to replace cash donations to Indian political parties with a system of electoral bonds was criticised as giving legitimacy to an opaque system by Milan Vaishnav, the South Asia public policy expert at the Washington D.C.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Public, civil society or the media will not be able to follow a single rupee in this money trail. I think it’s a disaster when it comes to public transparency,” said Vaishnav in a conversation with BloombergQuint.
At a time when elections are underway for key state assemblies and local government bodies across India, Vaishnav’s new book ‘When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics’ documents a steady rise, over the last dozen years, in the share of elected representatives that have criminal cases against their name.
In his research visits, he found that voters know the criminal reputation of candidates to a granular level of detail. Such candidates win, he said, because voters “believe that your willingness and ability to run afoul of the law, and do whatever it takes, is going to provide some semblance of protection.”
Vaishnav added that public funding of elections works well in places where party activity is transparent, and will not work in the current conditions in India. “Every single party will just take white money from the government, and they will continue on with their black money or private money shenanigans.”