Electoral Bond Donations And Action against Firms Unrelated, Says Rajnath Singh in Exclusive Interview to News18

Defence minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajnath Singh in an exclusive interview with Network18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi on Friday rejected the opposition’s allegations about a connection between certain companies donating funds to the BJP under the now-outlawed electoral bonds scheme and action by central agencies against them.

“The future will tell what will happen now. Time will tell how right were we by bringing electoral bonds,” he said about the scheme.

In a landmark verdict delivered on February 15, a five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding while calling it “unconstitutional” and ordered disclosure of data by the Election Commission of the donors, the amounts donated by them, and the recipients.

The government implemented the scheme in 2018. It was introduced by the Narendra Modi-led NDA government in Gazette Notification No. 20 dated January 2, 2018, in order to “cleanse the system of political funding in the country”.

“Tell me, I want to ask you, which company has donated to which party, should that be disclosed?” said Rajnath Singh during the interview. “Tomorrow, they will say who voted for which party should also be made public. Will you accept this? Any country, where there is healthy democracy, will it accept this? Who is giving their vote to which political party, to which person, should this also be disclosed?”

Opposition parties have cited the revelations following the Supreme Court order to attack the government, claiming that many firms facing criminal probes have turned out to be big buyers of these bonds overwhelmingly in favour of the BJP, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi even terming it an “extortion scheme”.

“But did the cases stop because of these bonds?” asked Rajnath Singh. “There are many such companies against which there are charges, but during elections, they donate.”

The agencies will keep doing their work, he added.

Asked if there was a connection between the donations from some of these companies coming after action against them, the minister said, “It should not be seen from this angle. It has no connection with that.”