Govt to announce electoral bonds scheme soon: Arun Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the Centre would shortly announce the nature of the electoral bonds scheme.

"This year, before the budget was being prepared, the prime minister had told us to take some steps in the budget to cleanse the political parties, and out of that the electoral bonds scheme was born," he said addressing BJP workers here. "We are in the process of shortly announcing the nature of the scheme," he said.

In the budget 2017-18, the government had proposed amendment to the RBI Act to enable issuance of electoral bonds. Lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his decisiveness, Jaitley said unlike the previous prime minister (Manmohan Singh), Modi has been decisive in taking steps with regard to demonetisation, surgical strike against Pakistan and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

On GST, he said from July 1 onwards India will become a uniform market, where goods and services will flow freely across the country and curb evasions. Jaitley said in the last three years, not even a single allegation of corruption has been levelled against the Modi government, for it has divested itself from discretionary power and allowed the system to decide all matters.

"Why is it that, in the last three years, not a single allegation of corruption has been made against the government? The reason is simple ... The government has divested itself from all discretionary powers, and left everything to be decided by the system," he said. "We have allocated spectrum and coal blocks, but nobody comes to meet us ... the system, the market mechanism decide it, and hence there is no scope for misuse of power and corruption," he said.

On Karnataka politics, Jaitley hoped that the party would put its heart and soul to bring it back to power under the leadership of B S Yeddyurappa. "Yeddyurappaji is in the driver's seat. Under his leadership, everybody will unitedly put his heart and soul and bring BJP back to power. Karnataka will become part of an aspirational India which does not believe in caste and dynastic politics, but performance of the government," he said. Jaitley added that neither caste nor dynastic politics will be enough to win elections.