New Delhi: With the electoral bond scheme focused on political finance being scrapped, former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Qureshi on Wednesday pitched for setting up a national fund into which corporates can make donations and then track their performance. Can be distributed among the parties in proportion. Me right in the last election.

Qureshi said that instead of giving money for elections, funding political parties would be a better option as it would take care of the organizational needs of the organizations and political activities.

In an interview to Video, the former CEC said that when the electoral bond scheme was introduced in 2017, it talked about transparency, but it "destroyed" the transparency that existed till then. "If you remember The then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley started his speech beautifully when he said that without transparency of political funding, free and fair elections are not possible.

“It was like music to our ears because that's what we were saying.His second statement was equally good that for the last 70 years, we have failed to achieve that transparency...

Qureshi said, "And we expected that his third sentence would be that we are going to achieve transparency and we will do it this way." Qureshi, who was CEC between July 2012 and June 2012, said, All the transparency that existed till then was to be ended. The transparency that existed was that every donation above Rs 20,000 was reported to the Election Commission."

He said there is no problem in replacing cash transactions with banking in the electoral bond scheme, but he does not agree with the argument that the donor wants confidentiality because he fears retaliation.

“I question it.In the last 70 years, the same donors have been donating to all the parties that have been winning and losing elections." He said, "No one has complained of vendetta. I ask BJP, have you retaliated against Congress donors or has Congress retaliated against your donors? Never."

Qureshi said that the donors are very smart and intelligent and donate to all parties.

He claimed that only those vindictive corporations would want secrecy.“I am glad that the Supreme Court has struck down the electoral bond scheme as unconstitutional and as you can see there are a lot of skeletons coming out of the cabinet.

He said, "My stance is that skeletons will keep coming forward, there will be a lot of information but don't go on post-mortem on all of them." He said that our focus should be on moving forward.

Stressing the need for reforms, he said the country is now back to the situation of 2017-1, where "nobody knew where the money was coming from". After, we are back to the situation in 2018, when the scheme became operational.Was it a happy situation then? Definitely not."

He said that the Election Commission, concerned citizens and think tanks are fighting against money power in elections.

"What is the situation in 2017, 70 per cent of fund collection was done by cash, no one knew where the money was coming from. It could be drug money, it could be land mafia," Qureshi said. Yes, it could be foreign money. How can we run our democracy on the strength of money, it is completely questionable why we want reforms.,

He said that the demand for reform has arisen again.

Qureshi said, "We have to eliminate the cash system. In that context, I have suggested setting up a national election fund. No one will be afraid of donating, it is going to a national fund." , "If you donate to the National Election Fund, the money will be distributed to the parties from there."

Qureshi suggested that the money in that fund could be obtained from corporate donors and the government could also donate money to this fund from the national treasury through the budget.Noting that some people would not like the idea of ​​using taxpayers' money for political purposes, Qureshi said that sourcing could be limited to voluntary donations and corporate social responsibility funding from corporates. He argued that voluntary Corporate donations may be given incentives such as 100 percent income tax relief.

"We can also use the Corporate Social Responsibility Fund. It's all a matter of details," Qureshi said.

Talking about the distribution of funds, he said that elections should not be funded but political parties should be funded.“The funding formula could be that we distribute it equally among nationally recognized parties, but all this is a matter of discussion,” he said.

Qureshi said, "What I have suggested is that funds should be given to parties based on their electoral performance in the last election. This is the most objective criterion."

“Depending on the number of votes you get, you can be paid Rs 100 or even Rs 200 for each vote,” Qureshi said. “60 crore votes were cast in the last election, so if Rs 100 is paid for every vote,” Qureshi said. So the total financing will be Rs 6,000 crore.,

"Will it be enough, I think it will be enough. When all the parties declare their collection for the last five years to the Election Commission, it is less than Rs 6000 crore. They raise it by begging, borrowing, weapons. All that will disappear,” he said.

Asked what would happen to new parties, Qureshi gave the example of Aam Aadmi Party and said the organization would first have to show seriousness in its performance and then be eligible for funds.“AAP contested the elections without money and won massively. They prove their seriousness and popularity without the power of money and if my formula had materialized, they would have been the richest party after the elections, winning 67 out of 70 seats,” he said.

“The party will have to prove its seriousness first. Are you a serious party or a fly-by-night operator,'' he said, adding that if the concept is accepted in principle, the details and nuances of the system can be worked out.

Qureshi said, “One solution is that ‘x’ amount of money is given as a loan to a new party.Similarly, independent candidates can also be given money according to the number of votes they get."“If you are independent and you get only one vote, I will be happy to give you Rs. 100 at due time on all operational details. "The idea is to weed out non-serious people looking to make a quick buck," he said.

He said that if people want to fund only a particular ideology, then parallelly they can directly find the party of their choice, but only through cheque.

He said the two systems could be run in parallel.In February, the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in the electoral bond case, striking down the electoral bond scheme.

Following the Supreme Court's direction, State Bank of India (SBI), which was the authorized seller of electoral bonds, shared the electoral bond data with the election panel on March 12. SBI said that from April 1, 2019 to February 15 this year A total of 22,217 electoral bonds of various denominations were purchased by donors, of which 22,030 were encashed by political parties.