We hope govt stops resorting to such mischievous ideas in future: Kharge on electoral bond scheme

PTI, Feb 15, 2024, 1:59 PM IST

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday welcomed the Supreme Court decision to strike down the electoral bonds scheme and hoped the government will stop resorting to “such mischievous ideas” in the future.

He said the Congress party had called the scheme “opaque and undemocratic” when it was launched.

Subsequently, in the 2019 manifesto, the Congress promised to scrap the Modi government’s “dubious scheme”.

“We welcome the decision of the Supreme Court today, which has struck down this ‘Black Money Conversion’ scheme of the Modi Government, calling it ‘Unconstitutional’.

“We remember how the Modi Govt, PMO and FM bulldozed every institution – RBI, Election Commission, Parliament and Opposition to fill BJP’s coffers. No wonder, 95% of the funding under this scheme was received by BJP,” Kharge said in a post in X.

“We hope that Modi Government will stop resorting to such mischievous ideas in future and listens to the Supreme Court, so that Democracy, Transparency and level-playing field persists,” the Congress chief said.

In a landmark judgement that delivered a big blow to the government, the Supreme Court on Thursday annulled the electoral bonds scheme, saying it violates the Constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression as well as the right to information.

The apex court ordered the State Bank of India (SBI) to disclose to the Election Commission the names of the contributors to the six-year-old scheme.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud directed that the SBI must disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties. The information should include the date of encashment and the denomination of the bonds and be submitted to the poll panel by March 6.

The Election Commission should publish the information shared by SBI on its official website by March 13, the bench said.