To Congress leader Anand Sharma's remark "Hurry up, flow has totally stopped here", Jaitley said, "If a government frames a law that helps even the opposition, it shows how big a heart it has."
The government on Thursday invited proposals and suggestions from political parties to make its budget proposal to introduce electoral bonds for cleaner funding of elections.
Replying to a debate on the Budget in Rajya Sabha, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley explained how the introduction of electoral bonds would improve the system of poll funding, ensuring both clean donations and anonymity of the donor.
"It is a legitimate difficulty. People have been wanting to donate by cheque, but they cite two practical reasons why they don't do it. Our names get disclosed. The opponents will target us and tomorrow when we do business, somebody will file a PIL and say, you gave money during the elections, and so you have got a contract."
"But through the electoral bonds, we have addressed both the issues, ensuring clean donations and keeping the identity of the donor confidential," said Jaitley explaining how only the person who has bought the redeemable electoral bonds will know which political party he has donated money to.
To Congress leader Anand Sharma's remark "Hurry up, flow has totally stopped here", Jaitley said, "If a government frames a law that helps even the opposition, it shows how big a heart it has."
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi sitting next to him, Jaitley defended the demonetization step, saying that it has given a blow to shadow economy and given a push to digital systems to help the formal economy grow. He argued that barring two states, tax collection of every big state increased in December thereby proving fears of a big 2 per cent to 3 per cent fall in the GDP totally false.
Jaitley rejected a suggestion for making PAN and Aadhaar mandatory for cash donations, saying it was not feasible, particularly in rural areas.
SAD leader Naresh Gujral floated the idea of making Aadhaar and PAN mandatory for cash donations for more transparency. "It is not feasible. If there are elections in a village or rural area, then how would a ruralite be able to meet this requirement of furnishing PAN and Aadhaar," Jaitley replied.
About the sub-plan for SCs and STs, Jaitley assured the House that funds were being spent on the welfare of these classes of society and distinction of the funding had been removed by the earlier government.
However, Jaitley decided to keep mum on questions regarding making Rs 3,100 crore available to the EC for Voter-verified paper audit trails (VVPAT) and on Prime Minister Modi's election promise made in Uttar Pradesh on waiving off farmers' debts.
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 "Arun Jaitley")
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