Livemint: New Delhi: Friday, 01 August 2014.
The ruling
party’s U-turn, after initially supporting bringing political parties under the
purview of the RTI, may draw the ire of activists who have been advocating
greater transparency in the political system.
The Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on
Thursday said bringing political parties under the Right to Information (RTI)
Act would hamper the smooth functioning of parties and the information could be
misused by opponents, in a departure from BJP’s earlier stance.
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| Minister of state for personnel and training Jitendra Singh |
“Declaring a
political party as public authority under the RTI Act would hamper its smooth
internal working, which is not the objective of the RTI Act,” minister of state
for personnel and training Jitendra Singh said in a written reply to the Rajya
Sabha.
He said no
representations from parties opposing the Central Information Commission (CIC)
order seeking to bring six national parties under RTI, have been received by
the government. In June last year, the CIC had issued an order putting the BJP,
Congress, Communist Party of India-Marxist, Nationalist Congress Party,
Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party under the sway of the RTI Act. The
political parties were asked to appoint an appellate mechanism to disclose
their sources of funding as well as details of expenditure.
All political
parties opposed the order and, instead, introduced the controversial Right to
Information (Amendment) Bill, 2013, to overturn it. The Bill was later sent to
a parliamentary standing committee which in December declared that political
parties should not be brought under the transparency law because they are not
public authorities created by Parliament.
While the
Congress, Left and others insisted that political parties cannot be brought
under the purview of the act, the BJP initially backed a law to overrule the
CIC order but later stated that it had no issues in being under the ambit of
the law.
BJP vice
president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi reiterated that the party wants transparency in
financial transactions. “BJP is in favour of greater transparency and all
political parties should be transparent in the financial dealings. Internal
discussions of the party, ticket distribution are internal matters of the
party. How can these decisions come under the RTI,” Naqvi asked.
Activists,
however, are adamant. “Our stand is very clear that the political parties play
an important role in democracy. A lot of information they hold is in great
public interest and so people have a right to know,” said Anjali Bhardwaj of
the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI). “If at all the
CIC’s order is to be challenged, it should be done in a court of law and to our
understanding no party has approached the courts till now.”
Congress
leader P.C. Chacko said, “On every issue, the BJP is taking a U-turn. The
Congress and the Left had always maintained political parties cannot be brought
under the Act because they function democratically and they have the right to
keep their confidentiality,” Chacko said.
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