CPI(M) for electoral reforms to curb political corruption

The CPI(M) has advocated a ban on corporate funding for political parties and a ceiling on parties' expenditure in polls as part of electoral reforms to curb political corruption.
"The Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) says he wants to end political corruption but he does the opposite. We are saying the first step required is to ban corporate funding of political parties," CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters here.
Corporates fund political parties because it is an investment for them, he said.
There should be a law putting a ceiling on the expenditure incurred by political parties in elections and not just for candidates, he said.

"So, political parties can spend hundreds of crores. You have private executive jets getting your leaders and dropping them and hundreds of helicopters. All this is people's money," he said.
Observing that there has not been a single government at the Centre in the last 70 years which has the support of more than 50 per cent of the people who voted, he favoured a proportional representation.

"The alternative is to have a proportional representation system. Many countries in the world have it. People vote for the political parties, not for candidates," he said.
The NDA government is waiving NPAs of banks that would benefit corporates but it is not waiving the loans of farmers, Yechury alleged.

The BJP is highlighting its theme that "Hindutva is development" in which minorities are marginalised, he claimed.
"Gujarat model... What is their programme... We have eliminated minorities, we have sidelined them and that's why development is taking place in Gujarat... What is their slogan? It is not Hindutva and development. The slogan is Hindutva is development," he alleged.
"We sideline the minorities. We clean India out of minorities... India will prosper... What are the speeches of PM? Kabrastan, shamshan ghat. Ramzan, Diwali," he claimed.
The ruling BJP is "patronising private armies" which indulge in attacks against minorities and Dalits in the name of cow protection and others in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Jharkhand, Yechury alleged.