The Hindu: New Delhi: Saturday,
August 03, 2013.
Surely
something is amiss when ideologically diverse political parties reach a
consensus on anything in quick time. Without even waiting to legally challenge
the order of the Central Information Commission bringing parties under the
ambit of the Right to Information Act, the Union Cabinet has decided to amend
the Act to nullify the effect of the order. Political parties will have to
accept the fact that they are accountable to their members, and to the people
they seek to represent. Transparency in the funding of parties and monitoring
of their expenses are essential in any functioning party-based democracy.
Parties, especially bigger ones, sustain themselves on off-the-books
transactions, and lean on business houses for expenses at the time of elections
and public events. Inevitably, there is a price to pay when these parties come
to power, a price that is often willingly paid in terms of policies and
concessions tailored to the needs of the election-time benefactors. This nexus
between industrial houses and political parties operates in the shadow economy.
As with all corrupt exchanges where both giver and taker are benefited, the
opacity of the dealings serves as immunity against prosecution. At present,
parties are required to declare to the Election Commission donations in excess
of Rs.20,000. However, non-reporting and under-reporting is common, and the EC
does not have the power or the capacity to verify declarations. Opening up the
ledgers of political parties to public scrutiny could be the first step in
making them more accountable.
However, in
making the internal deliberations of parties and their criteria for selection
of candidates also subject to the RTI Act, the CIC clearly exceeded its
jurisdiction. Free and frank discussions behind closed doors are intrinsic to
inner-party democracy, and to open up all deliberations to RTI queries is
tantamount to silencing, or wiping off the record, dissenting voices. Those
wanting answers on the criteria for selection of party candidates for an
election might have been hoping to expose choices made on the basis of caste
identity or muscle power, but the use of the RTI Act in such matters can make
political parties vulnerable to motivated attacks from opponents and wreckers
from within. A better way of ensuring transparency in candidate selection is to
push for effective empowerment of constituency-level party members as in the
United Kingdom but RTI can hardly be the vehicle for this. That said, instead
of hurriedly seeking to nullify the effect of the CIC’s order, the government
should use it as an opportunity to find ways to make political parties more
financially accountable and less corrupt.