JAMMU: Responding to the repeated calls of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the nation to switch over to cashless economy, Harsh Dev Singh, JKNPP Chairman and former Minister, on Wednesday said that the process needs to be initiated by making all political funding digital.
He said the slogans of digitising India and ridding it of black money were no doubt full of glamour but why were the political parties hesitating in making a beginning?
Asserting that charity begins at home, Singh said that Modi must make beginning form his own party by categorically announcing that BJP shall not receive any donations except by digital mode. He said that the very fount of corruption and black money in the country was political funding which needed to be addressed in the proper perspective.
Quoting the Election Commission as well, Harsh said that the rot began from non transparent manner in which money was used to fund political parties. He said that it was a universal truth that political parties particularly BJP and Congress raised thousands of crores as donations around 85 per cent of which was from unknown persons in denominations of less than Rs. 20,000 thus making a mockery of the anti corruption laws.
He said that it was common practice among big parties including some regional parties to subdivide the unaccounted funds into units below Rs. 20,000 and claim anonymity for them. He regretted that no political party raised its voice against such fictitious donations with PM Narendra Modi also failing to respond to the repeated calls of Election Commission to reduce the cap of anonymous donations from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 2,000. He said that the unanimity amongst the political parties to allow such corrupt practice to continue was highly reprehensible and it only exposed their hollow and supercilious claims of curbing corruption and black money. He said that it was highly preposterous that BJP and congress claiming merely 16 per cent and 18 per cent respectively of their total donations in excess of Rs. 20,000 with all the agencies including IT, IB and CBI maintaining silence and performing the role of a “caged parrots”.
Expressing the necessity of ending this charade and implementing the slogans of a cashless society, Singh called for amending the laws to mandate that all donations to political parties shall be in digital format. He said that PM has made an appeal to small traders and businessmen, farmers, vegetable vendors, tea stall owners washer-man, milk supplies etc to
bear with the hardships of transitioning to cashless transactions but maintained a silence with regard to political parties besides being unresponsive to the recommendations of Election Commission.