Campaign Finance Reforms in India: Issues and Challenges
Campaign Finance Reforms in India: Issues and Challenges
Campaign Finance Reforms in India: Issues and Challenges
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<strong>Campaign</strong> <strong>F<strong>in</strong>ance</strong> <strong>Reforms</strong> <strong>in</strong> <strong>India</strong>: <strong>Issues</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Challenges</strong><br />
c<strong>and</strong>idates on the basis of primaries as is done <strong>in</strong> the US, i.e. the c<strong>and</strong>idates<br />
actually have to w<strong>in</strong> the support of registered party members. Radical reforms<br />
will require possibly the right to recall, the right to reject a c<strong>and</strong>idate; you would<br />
have proportional representation; you can have various changes <strong>in</strong> the polity but<br />
even without such thorough reforms, it is possible to greatly reduce corruption<br />
<strong>in</strong> politics.<br />
Mr. S. K. Mendiratta, Legal Advisor, The Election Commission of <strong>India</strong><br />
As has been rightly said, the law relat<strong>in</strong>g to disclosures by political parties is<br />
absolutely absent today. Under the law there is a ceil<strong>in</strong>g fixed for the expenditure<br />
of a c<strong>and</strong>idate but there is no ceil<strong>in</strong>g on the expenditure of any political party.<br />
Some question was raised about ` 16 lakh be<strong>in</strong>g the spend<strong>in</strong>g-limit <strong>and</strong> ` 20<br />
crore be<strong>in</strong>g spent; if you see our record, <strong>in</strong> 95 per cent of the cases <strong>in</strong> the last<br />
elections, the returns from the c<strong>and</strong>idates show that most of them have spent<br />
only ` 8 or ` 9 lakh. Beyond that nobody has spent. So, we should ask the<br />
question, why should we not reduce the limit if you are able to contest elections<br />
with ` 8-9 lakh?<br />
On transparency <strong>in</strong> fund<strong>in</strong>g, for the last 15-20 years we have been ask<strong>in</strong>g for a<br />
beg<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g with an annual audit of political parties' accounts by a panel cleared<br />
by the Comptroller <strong>and</strong> Auditor-General (CAG) or the Election Commission,<br />
which would be made public. In 1998, the Government set up the Indrajit<br />
Gupta Committee on State fund<strong>in</strong>g. I happened to be the Secretary of that<br />
Committee. One of the issues related to the audit <strong>and</strong> publication of political<br />
party funds by <strong>in</strong>dependent auditors. There were n<strong>in</strong>e political parties; all major<br />
political parties were represented on that committee; our present Prime<br />
M<strong>in</strong>ister Dr. Manmohan S<strong>in</strong>gh was a member; so were Mr. Somnath Chatterjee<br />
<strong>and</strong> Mr. Vijay Kumar Malhotra. Every political party said the present system was<br />
okay: they had very competent chartered accountants, they got their accounts<br />
audited, so what was the need for <strong>in</strong>dependent auditors <strong>and</strong> why should the<br />
political parties publish the audited accounts? This was a very m<strong>in</strong>or th<strong>in</strong>g for<br />
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