Govt's electoral bonds for political funding: A cloak to hide the daggers?

After a concerted effort by political parties to circumvent disclosures under the RTI Act come the electoral bonds that will confer on them the benefit of pretending to not know who has donated

While the nation’s attention stands rivetted to divisions in the Supreme Court with political parties jumping in to seek mileage over recent events, the noise has succeeded in deflecting public attention from a massive retrograde step. A new year gift to all political parties is the Central government delivering on its threatened promise of enabling a white-wash of anonymous political funding through “electoral bonds”.

Electoral bonds were conceptually discussed briefly last year after the Union Budget was presented. While political parties are merrily commenting on the need for transparency in all institutions, they are happily engaged in a conspiracy of