PANJIM: The Communist Party of India (CPI) has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to rethink the move on political funding and roll back the amendments to the Finance Bill.
Referring to the political funding and other steps taken by the government, the letter written by CPI Gen Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy says, “It may recollected here that on February 1, 2017 Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while presenting the Union Budget for 2017-18 made stipulations that the maximum amount of cash donations for a political party will be Rs 2000 from one source and that the political parties will be entitled to receive donations by cheques or digital mode from donors.”
It adds, “Hardly two months after, that is on March 23, 2017, an amendment to the Finance Bill was adopted removing cap and other conditions on political funding by corporate houses. With this the corporate are allowed to pump in any amount to political parties which definitely will go into the kitties of only ruling parties. This amendment shocked the nation.”
Reddy further said that CPI fails to understand the need for such a retrograde step. “Is it to cover huge funds collected during the 2014 elections? You and your government have always been talking of transparency and accountability but now we find you and your government have given a burial to all your tall talks of fighting corruption”
CPI urged the Prime Minister to rethink the move in the interest of the nation and to roll back the amendments.
