Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'How political parties raise funds in the country?' that was published in Newsband

How political parties raise funds in the country?

The known donors and sources of contributions to national and regional parties account for less than a third of their total income. A survey shows that 69% of funds and contributions received by political parties from 2004-05 to 2014-15 came from unknown sources.

In 2013, the Central Information Commission ruled that political parties were covered under the Right to Information Act. It would mean the list of donors, regardless of size of contribution, is open to public scrutiny. Even if the donations below 20k comes under the scrutiny of RTI still there are ways to do away with this, since political parties acts smart and will pay some money as a bribe to donate in the party's name. Solution for this problem has to be pragmatic. Funds limit should be specified so that it will put a halt on the wastage of resources.

It would be very difficult to bring all political parties under RTI because all the public elected representatives don't have will to do so, and if done, it would create more trouble for themselves. The election commission should itself be a regulatory authority to receive authentic reports on political funds scrutiny because it's a constitutional body which works on autonomy. None other can act as good as EC.

Debate on funding of political parties is not new. Many activists have pointed out the untraceable funding mechanism. But governments over the years have overlooked the problems. The RTI should be extended to the funding problem of all political parties.

Let all political parties, if they are patriotic, reveal collection of huge party funds from unknown source rather than celebrating Republic/Independence Days to display their patriotism towards the nation.

Otherwise, there should be a scrutiny team working under control of Supreme Court and the team has to submit annual reports of fund related activities of parties

'Association for Democratic Reforms says the income of national parties from unknown sources increased by 313%'. It is akin to terrorists getting unaccounted funds. It is akin to some NGOs getting funds unaccounted. This is anti-national and it must stop and stop forthwith. Wonder why the Supreme Court of India that interferes in every trivial issue is mum on this issue of national importance.