Congress dumps Election Commission's guidelines on transparency and accountability

At a time when transparency has become a buzz word, the Congress has rejected the Election Commission's guidelines on transparency and accountability related to funds of political parties and election expenditure.

Taking into account inputs provided by the political parties to its draft proposal on transparency and accountability sent in August last year, the EC had issued fresh guidelines on February 26 and sent it to the political parties to respond within two weeks.

Incidentally, the BJP has not sent any comments, thus in a way accepting them, while the CPM gave consent to the guidelines by broadly agreeing with them.

Nit-picking EC's guidelines, Congress told the Commission on March 12, there are no provisions under the Representation of People's Act, 1951, that stipulate political parties to submit their audited annual accounts with auditor's report for each financial year to the poll panel before October 30 of every year.

"Therefore, the proposal appears to be contrary to the provisions of the applicable law and if such condition is to be imposed, it would require amendment to the Act," says the letter of Congress treasurer, Motilal Vora.

EC's in proviso 3 (ii) of its guidelines had said "political parties shall submit to the commission as copy of the audited annual accounts with auditor's report for each financial year, before October 30."
Putting yet another spoke in provision 3(iv) of the guidelines, the Congress said that the Commission was "factually incorrect" while quoting the provisions of the Income Tax Act.
Vora said there is absolutely no prohibition with regard to making cash expenditure by political parties of over Rs 20,000 under the Income Tax Act or otherwise.
Taking rather a rigid stand, the letter further said, "Since the proposed direction/ advice is based on an incorrect understanding of the contents of section 40 (A) of the Income Tax Act, the proposal is misconceived."

The Congress was not in sync even with EC's guideline provisos that advise political parties not to make any payment in excess of Rs 20,000 in a day to any person or company or entity in cash, except in villages or towns not served by a bank and that the all contributions of more than Rs 1,000 received should be duly acknowledged by issuing receipts.

The parties were also told by the EC to maintain name and address of donors and submit the amount collected within one week to party's bank account.
Making clear that the provisos do not gel with Congress's position, Vora's letter said, "The proposed instruction amounts to modifying the legislative intent, which is to monitor and to report contributions in excess of Rs 20,000 received in a financial year. Further, the proposed direction to deposit the amount received in party's bank account within a week is also not as per applicable law and would require substantive amendment to the RP Act and cannot be enforced by way of guidelines and instructions."

Not in agreement with EC, the Trinamool Congress, too, has sought further clarifications whether the guidelines are mandatory or advisory in nature and has suggested the Commission to keep them advisory as the political parties do not have any relation to section 80 GGB or 80 GGC of the Income Tax Act.
Terming Rs 1,000 as too meagre an amount that would increase futile exercise of maintaining records of such transactions, the Samajwadi Party has asked the EC to increase the limit from Rs 1,000 to a reasonable amount of Rs 50,000.