2024-03-25 21:35:21
There is a stir in the country after the Supreme Court’s decision regarding election bonds before the Lok Sabha elections. The Election Commission has put the information given by State Bank of India on its website. In such a situation, the question is who is behind this entire exercise?
If today, revelations about donors buying electoral bonds are a hot topic of discussion, much of the credit goes to civil society, RTI activists and a tenacious legal team. One of the prominent names among them is Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) NGO. The organization had filed a petition in 2017 soon after the announcement of the electoral bond scheme in Parliament. However, few people know that it all started with an innocuous message 25 years ago. The message was, ‘Please come to my room for a meeting.’ A group of professors from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and a few others gathered to discuss what could be done to stop the politician-criminal nexus. This message was sent by IIM Professor Trilochan Shastri.
It was dismissed as a fight with an invisible enemy.
Shastri recalls that as an educationist, I was very concerned about the situation in the country. Every day there was some scam in the newspapers, be it fodder scam or Bofors scam. He wanted to file a PIL to make the criminal records of elected representatives public. The idea behind this was simple: if people knew that there were cases of murder, riot or rape against their candidate, it might deter them from voting. A lawyer suggested that Shastri form an organization of like-minded people so that the petition would have more weight. The meeting in the room was to see who would support a plan that many had dismissed as tantamount to fighting an invisible enemy. Ultimately, only 11 people signed a piece of paper to create the ADR in 1999.
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Jagdeep S Chhokar, another founding member and partner of the transparency campaign, says that I tried to dissuade Shastri, saying that it would not make any difference, but eventually I also signed the paper. Despite initially being a reluctant collaborator, Chhokar, 79, became part of the strong team that has sustained the NGO through many difficult challenges. The group’s commitment to bringing transparency to the political funding process was tested early on. Shastri, 64, says he had to meet several lawyers before one agreed to take the case. Some people rejected the idea while others wanted money which I could not afford. Finally, we contacted Prashant Bhushan and he agreed to represent us free of charge. When the Delhi High Court passed an order in our favor in 2000, Shastri and Chhokar thought the battle had been won.
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Direct fight with the government…again NEW
However, the government protested the decision and appealed to the Supreme Court. Advocate Kamini Jaiswal, who is an ADR trustee, says that we faced confrontation from the government and political parties at every step. The reason for this was that they are not ready to reform but no one can give up the fight. Twenty-five years later, ADR, which has only a handful of employees, has won several victories. In 2003, the Supreme Court made it mandatory for candidates contesting elections to file a self-sworn affidavit (Form 26) declaring information about their criminal, financial and educational background. Shastri said this had a significant impact. A group of NGOs started gathering around us. We were able to garner support on this issue. After this these people did not look back. ADR created an informal network of NGOs in the states that helps collect, analyze and spread awareness about local candidates. It is known as National Election Watch.
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Many NGOs associated with ADR
Over the years, ADR has worked with other NGOs such as Vigilant Citizens Organization, Common Cause and Center for Public Interest Litigation on a number of issues related to electoral reforms. In July 2013, based on a petition by NGOs Lok Prahari and ADR, sitting MPs and MLAs were barred from holding office if convicted in court. In 2018, the court also made it mandatory to disclose financial records of the candidate’s spouse and dependents. However, instead of basking in these achievements, there was a feeling of dissatisfaction. Chhokar says our analysis showed that there has been an increase in the number of candidates with criminal records selected. This seems to be defeating the entire purpose of the effort we are making.
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RTI became the identity of Lokesh Batra
There were criminal cases pending against 185 winning candidates in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, out of a total of 542 (affidavits of one candidate could not be analysed). By the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, this had increased to 232. After this the NGO decided to focus its attention on campaign funding. After this the issue of electoral bonds was raised. ADR has often been advised by lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan. Therefore, be it the matter of bringing political parties under the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act or electoral bonds, he has almost always been at the helm of legal battles. Another transparency campaigner whose persistence helped bring out information on electoral bonds is Commodore Lokesh Batra, a 77-year-old retired naval officer who has been filing RTIs since the beginning of the implementation of the law. He used it to highlight the missing children of Nihari village in 2006. RTI records revealed how many complaints from village residents were ignored by the police, municipality and even the National Commission for Women. Authorities took notice when body parts started appearing in the drains of Nithari Colony.
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How did you become interested in electoral bonds?
Over the years, Batra, by his own admission, has filed thousands of RTIs seeking disclosures from public authorities. He says that when I am walking or eating, even sometimes when I am sleeping, I start thinking about which RTI to file. With that restless energy, he starts typing his draft but is able to send it only at 9 in the morning. His interest in electoral bonds increased in February 2017 when the then Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proposed that the identities of donors buying bonds be kept secret out of fear that they would be politically targeted. Batra says that it came to light that the government does not want the identity of the donors to be revealed. This only prompted the veteran to file several RTIs for files, notes and other paperwork related to the decision. RTI responses received from the government, Election Commission and RBI over the last six years formed the basis of ADR’s PIL on electoral bonds. He says I never had any problem in getting information. This was possible only because they do not give up. As Shastri says, working in public reform requires perseverance, patience and faith.