The Opposition is united against the BJP over the issue of electoral bonds.
Though the move to discuss the matter through an adjournment motion in Parliament did not succeed, the Opposition is considering a short-duration discussion that entails voting or a calling attention motion on the matter in both the Houses.
The parties have also stepped up offensive against the BJP as more reports emerged about the alleged illegalities involved in the electoral bonds and funding of political parties. The Congress protested in front of the Gandhi statue in Parliament House.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra asked the BJP to answer whether the RBI and the Election Commission had objected to the use of electoral bonds.
“Reports also say that the Prime Minister allowed the sale of bonds during the Karnataka elections in an illegal manner. Is it true? Did the government lie that the names of donors will be secret?” she asked in Twitter.
The CPI(M) demanded that in the interests of Indian democracy and the sanctity of the country’s election process, electoral bonds must be scrapped immediately.
“The recent exposures on how the electoral bond scheme was a route to finance the ruling party has once again established that such legalisation of political corruption must end. The PMO has been directing the Finance Ministry to instruct the State Bank of India to flout the Ministry’s own laid down rules to permit the realisation of expired bonds to facilitate its horse-trading in the post-election situation in Karnataka resulting in a hung Assembly,” the party alleged in a statement.
The Congress and other Opposition parties had given notices in Rajya Sabha under Rule 267 seeking a discussion on the issue without taking up any other matters. Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu, however, did not allow this.
“I am not convinced about the sudden necessity to discuss (electoral bonds). But I am convinced about the necessity to discuss and so it can be taken up in a different form,” Naidu said. He advised the members to raise it under different rules.