Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday accused the opposition parties of spreading lies on electoral bond scheme which has been struck down by the Supreme Court.
“Everyone will regret it when there is an honest reflection,” Modi said in an interview with news agency ANI.
In landmark verdict on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench scrapped the electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional". The top court also directed the State Bank of India to handover all details of the donors to the Election Commission and publish it on the poll body’s website.
Modi said the scheme was aimed at curbing black money in elections and it allowed the trail to show who had made contributions to political parties through the scheme. He, however, admitted that there was a lot of scope for improvement in the scheme.
“How can our elections be free from this black money? How can there be transparency? There was a pure thought in my mind. We were looking for a way. We found a small way, we never claimed that this was the absolute way," he said in the interview.
Modi claimed that of the 16 companies that gave donations to politics parties after facing actions by central agencies, only 37 per cent of the amount went to the BJP while 63 per cent went to the opposition parties.
“There is a lot of scope of improvement in this (electoral bond scheme) also. But today we have completely pushed the country towards black money, hence I say everyone will regret it. When they will think honestly, everyone will regret it," he said.
The prime minister also noted that political parties were earlier allowed cash donations up to Rs 20,000 and he changed it to Rs 2500 as he did not want "this cash business" to go on.
The Congress alleged that the BJP has made ‘bribes’ legal via electoral bonds and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the scheme.
