Transperency in Political Funding

With its move to demonetise high-value currency notes, the government claims to be fighting the problem of black or untaxed money that has become a menace to the economy, I wont be discusssing the pros and cons of the move being no economist but one question seems to be taking a lot of eyebrows about political funding.

What’s the issue?

If the Government is serious about his fight against black money and moving India towards a cashless society, if you, I and everybody else, are being encouraged to go cashless, why are political parties still allowed to take donations in cash and not declare the source of funds?

What the rule says

Political Parties are only legally required to publicly disclose political contributions in excess of Rs. 20,000. This rule allows unlimited political contributions just below this threshold value completely free of disclosure and this is where the problem lies.

Source of Information

I have created bar charts in order to visualise the source of funding of the two National Parties, BJP(Bhartiya Janta Party) and INC(Indian National Congress) from the report published by ADR(Association for Democratic Reform) between 2004-2005 and 2011-2012. You can visit the ADR website for further information ADR report. I have added new features to the data for better understanding.

Dataset

National Party	Donations from unknown sources(in crores)	% unknown sources	Total Donations	Donations from known sources(in crores)	% known sources
BJP	952.58	73	1304.904	352.3241	27
INC	1951.07	82.5	2364.933	413.8633	17.5
Total	2903.65	79.12	3669.837	766.1874	20.88

Analysis and Visualization

Just look at the  bar chart  below for a few seconds

Needless to say, these “unknown sources” are the top sources of income for political parties.

Doesn’t the green bar seems to be black?

Congress received the largest amount (Rs 1,951.07 crore or 82.5%) in anonymous donations.About 73% of BJP’s donors were unknown which accounted for 952 crores RS.

Percentage of Anonymous Donation

The total funds received by the two national political parties (Bhartiya Janta Party and Congress) between 2004-2005 and 2011-2012 was Rs 3,669 crores of which only 20.88% was from known donors. Around Rs 2903 crores or 79.12% were anonymous contributions.

Congress received 82.5 % funds from unknown sources, BJP on the other hand received 73% funds from unknown sources.

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Shouldn’t there be less infiltration of black money in political parties?

Political parties have been opposing the Right To Information Act saying it was impossible to keep track of all donations. “Why should political parties be the only exception?

I’ll leave you with these questions because questions need to be asked in a democracy.

Thanks