Responding to the issues raised by members on electoral

bonds, Jaitley said such donations will be reflected in the balance sheet of corporates.

"Balance sheet will always reflect the amount of electoral bond that he (company) has purchased. The person who donates by cheque will be disclosed in the balance sheet, the person who donates by bond, the quantum of bond which is purchased will be reflected in the balance sheet," he said.

"If we want clean money, should we narrow down and restrict the constituency of donors," the Minister asked.

Calling for an "honest and bold decision", he asked "do we want to clean up the political funding or no".

He said "if we reduce the ambit of donors and the quantum they can donate, then the tendency to move towards cash donations will always be higher. So let us take a bold decision whether we want a tendency where people are incentivised and encouraged by cheques (donations) or not".

"Today we have given the option that receive donation by cheque, there is total transparency. It's clean money. Small donations by cash less than Rs 2000. You can receive donations online and do it by bonds which is clean money...," he added.

When Md Salim (CPI-M) raised the issue, Jaitley said other political parties would not have any problem on ideological grounds, but "you have an ideological problem and you are opposing it from 2001". The CPI(M) has been demanding state-funding of elections for a long time.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)