Congress, BJP saved themselves by changing FCRA, says Yechury
Sitaram Yechury Sitaram Yechury
A day after the Supreme Court sought a response from the Centre on a petition filed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) challenging constitutionality of the introduction of electoral bonds by Finance Act, 2017, the party’s general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Saturday said the Congress and the BJP had saved themselves by amending the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), as both parties had received huge amounts in contribution from foreign companies.
A bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud had on Friday issued notice to the Centre on a plea by Yechury and his party, challenging the electoral bond scheme notified by the government. “The Congress and the BJP have received huge amounts of money from foreign companies. Had these parties not amended the FCRA, they could have been prosecuted. They saved themselves,” Yechury told reporters here.
He alleged the Congress and the BJP used their stints in power to frame policies that suited the corporates. “Political parties, being recipients of corporate funding, use their stints in the government to make policies that suit ‘friendly’ corporates,” Yechury said.
“These corporates constitute the ‘supply side’ of corruption, which is corroding our system. Unless corporate funding is banned, this problem cannot be solved.”
Yechury also released a list of donors, including some foreign companies, who he claimed had contributed huge sums of money to the Congress and the BJP since 2004.
Yechury said that the BJP-led Central government had amended four different statutes through Finance Act, 2017– the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, the Representation of People Act, 1951, the Income Tax Act, 1961 and the
Companies Act, 2013 — to introduce the concept of electoral bonds. These bonds were operationalised by the Centre through a notification on January 2.
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