(Express file photo/Renuka Puri)Days after announcing the key features of electoral bonds in Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said the mechanism would substantialy improve transparency in electoral funding, and invited suggestions to further cleanse the old system. In a detailed Facebook post titled, ‘Why Electoral Bonds are Necessary,’ Jaitley talked about the conventional way of relying on cash donations for political funding. Saying that the electoral bonds would resolve this issue, Jaitley said that the choice has to be “consciously” made between the existing system of substantial cash donations involving unclean money and other transparent options like cheque, online transactions or electoral bonds. Jaitley last week had announced the contours of new ‘electoral bonds’ that can be bought from specified branches of SBI in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh or Rs 1 crore. The decision to use electoral bonds in political funding was first announced by Jaitley during his budget speech last year.

Source: Indian Express January 07, 2018 09:38 UTC