New Delhi: The government Thursday announced that the State Bank of India will launch the sale of electoral bonds in the months of March, April and May, issuing a press release in the morning that was first cancelled and then reiterated in the evening.
Electoral bonds are akin to bearer instruments: People seeking to make donations to political parties can purchase electoral bonds, to be issued in certain fixed values, and give them to the recipient, who can then encash them.
Launched in March 2018, electoral bonds are meant to ensure transparency in political funding and offer an alternative to cash donations made to parties, but remain shrouded in controversy.
In a press release issued Thursday morning, the finance ministry announced the schedule for the sale of electoral bonds. It said the bonds will be sold in three tranches from 1-15 March, 1-20 April and 6-15 May, with some of the dates likely to coincide with the Lok Sabha election, which is likely to be held in April and May.
The release was subsequently withdrawn.
“This is with reference to the Press Release on Electoral Bonds which was issued today. This Press Release may be treated as withdrawn for the present,” said an official email from the ministry.
Hours later, however, the ministry sent another email cancelling the withdrawal.
“Kindly refer to our earlier request to treat the above press release as cancelled. Now, the earlier Press Release stands as it is,” it said. “The inconvenience caused is deeply regretted.”
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‘Internal confusion’
An official of the finance ministry denied suspicions that the confusion stemmed from the fact that the dates announced would coincide with elections in the country, attributing the withdrawal of the press release and its subsequent cancellation to “internal confusion”.
Meanwhile, a senior Election Commission official told ThePrint that the overlapping schedules were not against rules.
“There is no rule prohibiting sale of electoral bonds during elections,” the official said. “Ultimately, these are just donations to political parties, and there is no rule banning parties from receiving donations during elections.”
The electoral bond scheme, envisaged as a step to check the secretive system of political donations, has earned the Narendra Modi government significant flak.
The most controversial provision of the scheme seeks to protect the identity of donors, and the opposition has alleged that it will make the poll-funding process opaque and benefit the ruling party.
According to the BJP’s audit and income-tax reports submitted to the Election Commission (EC) last year, the party was the biggest beneficiary of the scheme — bagging 95 per cent of the bonds issued in March 2018.
The Election Commission, too, has flagged several concerns with regard to the scheme in the past. In 2017, the EC had called the scheme “a retrograde step” — a concern which was upheld by the law ministry as well.
“This is a retrograde step as far as transparency of donations is concerned and this proviso needs to be withdrawn,” the poll panel had said in a letter to the law ministry.
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