A Constitution Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, D.Y. Chandrachud, recently reserved its judgment on petitions challenging the validity of the electoral bonds scheme. The proceedings focused on arguments pertaining to the voters’ right to information vis-a-vis the right to confidentiality of donors. Transparency in election funding has become the central issue here. Should elections be state funded instead? Jagdeep Chhokar and Sanjay Kumar discuss the question in a conversation moderated by Sreeparna Chakrabarty. Edited excerpts:
Can state funding of elections bring in transparency in the poll process?
Jagdeep Chhokar: First, calling it state funding of elections is a misnomer. It should be called public funding of elections. I say this because in India, we unfortunately have a notion that whatever the state does is free. If there is such funding, it will be public money that the state will be giving for elections. So, if we call it public funding of elections, my sense is that people will feel that it is their money, which is the truth.
Also read | Challenging the Electoral Bond Scheme
Public funding of elections can certainly bring transparency in the poll process, but it depends on how it is done. If public money is given to political parties and candidates, and let’s say they are also welcome to get money from wherever they like, then there are serious issues. Public funding in principle is a good idea, but the mechanics of it need to be fleshed out.
Sanjay Kumar: I think it would be a welcome step, but I’m not sure whether it will bring about transparency in the electoral process because we need to look at the nitty-gritty of how this is going to be worked out, we need to look at what state funding means.
Also read | Election Commission not in favour of State funding of elections: Anurag Thakur
It would certainly be better than the existing system where candidates and political parties spend from their own pocket and a lot of black money goes into election campaigning. State funding of elections will help bring some transparency. But I’m not sure whether the entire electoral process will become transparent with state funding of elections alone.
Four reports have looked into the viability of state funding of elections. The Indrajit Gupta Committee Report, the Law Commission of India Report of 1999, the Report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission in 2008, and the National Commission to review the working of the Constitution Report of 2001. The first three said that state funding is desirable to an extent. Is it viable for the Indian economy?
Jagdeep Chhokar: We can discuss viability provided we agree that public funding is desirable, which I think it is. You mentioned four reports. If you read the Indrajit Gupta Committee Report, which is most often quoted in support of public funding of elections, it says state funding should be done only in kind and not in cash. It also says that state funding of elections would be a waste of public resources unless it is accompanied by factors such as democratisation of political parties and decriminalisation of the political process. It says unless there is internal democracy in political parties, state funding of elections will be a waste of public money. So, it lays down conditions under which public funding of elections can be, and should be, considered, and not necessarily adopted. State funding is viable only if parties are internally and demonstrably democratic in their functioning, transparent in their financial affairs, and there is a reliable mechanism of ensuring that parties and candidates do not accept money from other sources.
Also read | Opaque political financing could cost democracy dear
Now, if there is public funding of elections, how much provision should we make for that? If an amount is to be set aside for public funding of elections, we need to know how much money was spent in the last election. That number depends on a couple of factors. First, the money that the Election Commission of India spent. This data is available and reasonably accurate. Second, the amount spent by political parties and candidates. This figure is known only to political parties and candidates who contest elections.
Professor Kumar, the Indrajit Gupta Committee had said that whatever funding is given should be in kind, such as free transport. How would this work? And is it possible to explore a system which is partially public funded?
Sanjay Kumar: People need to discuss this because the question is about a possibility. Is this possible or not? I think it is possible. You have to work out a model. We cannot say this is not possible at all or that this is perfectly alright. Political parties need to be part of the decision-making process.
A few years ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called for a discussion on public funding of elections. Before that, the Congress had also raised it. But nothing has come out of these statements. Why have parties never taken this issue forward?
Sanjay Kumar: Political parties support it because state funding of elections is seen as socially desirable or desirable in the electoral context. But they have not been able to move ahead with this because at the moment, this is just a concept. Nobody is clear about how it is to be worked out.
Also, is it a case that except the two large national parties, most political parties, especially regional parties, have now become family-oriented?
Sanjay Kumar: How does that relate to state funding of elections? Suppose the government decides to give ₹100 crore to political parties for poll contests. How will this amount be distributed? The benchmark should be the party’s performance in the last Lok Sabha or Assembly elections, not whether the party is being headed by a family member or not.
Also read | A vote for state funding
Jagdeep Chhokar: I am amused that Professor Kumar is saying or at least implying that the party which gets more votes should get more money. That if Party A won or got more votes in the last election, it should get more money for this election. If that party then has more money than the parties that have lost, it will be an uneven playing field.
Sanjay Kumar: I was only stating a limited point that if the funding is to be supported by the government, the criteria cannot be whether a party is being headed by a family or a party which has a democratically elected leader. There have to be different criteria, and I was just citing an example. I’m not saying that the party which has performed better should get more money or a party which has performed poorly should get less. Things can be worked out. This could be one possibility. But my intervention was to another point: if a party has a leader who is democratically elected, we can’t say there should be different criteria for giving funds to that party while parties which are family parties should be punished with less funds.
Jagdeep Chhokar: It is problematic to say that the money to be given to political parties depends on their electoral performance. No party today functions as a political party. Political parties function as corporates. Their business is to win elections and make money to be able to win the next elections. So, this functioning of political parties as corporate entities or as family-run corporate entities is the fundamental problem. Political parties have to be made accountable to the public. They have to be democratic institutions if they are to deserve public money.
How do other democracies handle this?
Sanjay Kumar: There are some 34 countries where state funding of elections is available in some form or the other. The highest proportion of state funding of elections is in Norway, which is about 74% of the total expenses on the election. But there are different models. In some countries only parties get the fund, candidates do not. There are countries where it’s the other way round.
Jagdeep Chhokar: In most countries where there is public funding of elections, there are also strict transparency requirements. In the U.S., there is a rule that if the presidential candidate raises X amount of money, they are eligible to receive an equal amount of money from the government. But this is subject to certain conditions. In the last two or three presidential elections, no candidate has accepted government money. They have said that they do not want to accept these conditions and that they are able to raise enough money on our own. The point is, if there is to be any public funding of elections, I, as a member of the public, would insist on complete transparency about the money spent by the party or the candidate in the election. If a candidate or a party is allowed to accept other money in addition to public money, there is a very serious problem. And that is the reason why no political party has taken it forward.
Jagdeep Chhokar is co-founder and trustee, Association for Democratic Reforms; Sanjay Kumar is Professor, Centre for Study of Developing Societies, Delhi
