By Tarunkumar Singhal, Raman Jokhakar, Chartered Accountants
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A probe ordered into the sources of funding of a political party — whether that order comes from the government itself or is prompted by the judiciary — would seem a move against a primary source of corruption in India. But why should such a probe be limited to one single party? Thus, while the Centre says it will investigate whether the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) violated rules on its sources of funding, it makes for an utterly skewed situation when other parties are not subject to a similar investigation. Reform of political funding is a key, perhaps the most significant, part of combating the malaise of corruption in India. As long as parties do not disclose their sources of income and how that money is spent, political corruption will continue to facilitate corruption within the wider polity.
Unless the move to investigate the transparency claims of the AAP widens into probing the secretive nature of how other parties — including the Congress and the BJP — collect funds, it would seem to be a bullying tactic against a political opponent. To its credit, AAP has maintained it can account for every donation it receives. The website of the party does have a donors list. And this is a welcome paradigm shift. There is nothing even remotely similar from the BJP and the Congress — the two parties facing the biggest threat from the AAP in the looming Delhi polls. And the AAP is perfectly right when it asks that the BJP and Congress be subjected to similar levels of transparency.
There is no comparison between the declared funds of AAP and that of the Congress and BJP. Add the amounts political parties do not declare, and we will have a humungous amount of money. Reforming such political funding is the larger goal. Targeting only a small, new political party is petty vendetta.
(Source: The Economic Times dated 13.11.2013).
