In the sixth part of its #PaisaPolitics story, HuffPost India has revealed that the then Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, while announcing the electoral bonds scheme on February 01, 2017, lied that donors had asked for anonymity.
“Donors have also expressed reluctance in donating by cheque or other transparent methods as it would disclose their identity and entail adverse consequences,” Jaitley said in his Budget speech.
Following HuffPost India’s explosive revelation on this whole electoral bonds issue, Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday held a press conference and mentioned the same claim about donors reluctant to declare their political contributions.
Since March 2018, over 6,000 crore rupees have been bought and sold and given to political parties in electoral bonds. It was released in 12 tranches and the first tranche was about Rs. 222 crore. Of that, the BJP received 95 per cent.
Three years after Arun Jaitley gave that speech and so many bonds being bought and sold, the Finance Ministry has now admitted that no donor ever told the government to create an opaque system of funding political parties, HuffPost India reported.
“No representation or petition or communication has been received from the donors, regarding the need for maintaining the confidentiality of their identity while making donations to political parties,” the Finance Ministry admitted in response to a Right to Information request filed by Venkatesh Nayak.
It is also to be noted here that this reply was given to Nayak three years after he filed the RTI application.
Also read: Electoral bonds with denomination of Rs. 1 crore accounted for 91% donation
Nayak filed the RTI in July 2017 and as per law, the ministry was supposed to reply in 30 days. But, the ministry kept silent. After the 30-day period was over, Nayak appealed against it and the ministry resorted to another delaying tactic of sending Nayak’s application from one department to another.
In January 2018, Nayak approached the Central Information Commission, which ordered the Finance Ministry to provide a reply. But it took another year and ten months for Nayak to finally get an answer to his query.
The response was: No representation or petition or communication has been received from the donors, regarding the need for maintaining the confidentiality of their identity while making donations to political parties.
It shows that former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley lied in Parliament regarding electoral bonds.
Naik filed the RTI in July 2017 and as per law, the ministry was supposed to reply in 30 days. But, the ministry kept silent. After the 30-day period was over, Naik appealed against it and the ministry resorted to another delaying tactic of sending Naik’s application from one department to another.
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