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Any individual or any company contributing to individual candidates should also be allowed to make such contributions and the freedom to receive contributions should not be confined to political parties alone. We have a multi-party system and independents are also allowed to contest elections, who cannot get contributions while political parties can get contributions.

I would like to draw the attention of the Government to one more aspect. There are NRIs, the people who are interested in having good governance at the Centre and also in the States. They are interested in contributing to political parties but their contributions are not coming in the legal way. Therefore, we are having a parallel economy where the contributions are not accounted for. Now, we are going to have a law where political parties would be required to properly show their accounts to the Election Commission. So, if NRIs or people living in foreign countries are ready to contribute to a particular party or a particular principle, that contribution should come through the legal route. Money is coming in but it is not coming in through the legal route. So, this should also be considered in future and amendments should be brought in.

Dr. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who opposed this Bill, made one very honest statement that the amount most candidates disclose in the return may not be an honest reflection of what is actually spent in the election. If we honestly see as to how the funding takes place, even when black-money enters politics, if you are spending more than what you are declaring, let us just analyse how the funding takes place. If black money is contributed to a political party, that political party will in turn undertake its expenditure in the same invisible colour of money. When the political party pays its bills – whether it is to the printers, or for advertisements, or for hiring the vehicles, or for travel, or for organising money – all its expenditure continues in the parallel economy and not within the tax net. At no stage will this money enter the tax net. At no stage will this money enter the proper taxation provisions of our law. As a result of that, the money which is being used in the electoral process is earning no revenue for the Government of India. It earns no revenue because it remains outside the tax net at every stage where the taxable expenditure is undertaken, or the taxable income is earned. So, if a political party pays the printer, if it pays the transporter, if it pays various other sources, it pays in the same colour of money in which the donation is received. As a result of that, at no stage is the tax paid on it - whether it is excise duty on the paper which is used, whether it is sales tax on the purchase of certain commodities or whether it is income tax on the income which is earned - and the parallel economy continues.