CM Siddaramaiah: A Bengaluru court has directed registration of a First Information Report against Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for a complaint that raised allegations of extortion connected with the now-scrapped electoral bond scheme. A member of the Janaadhikara Sangharsha Sanghatane, Adarsh Iyer, had filed this complaint against Sitharaman and others for allegedly having exploited the scheme for extortion.
FIR Issued by Special Court
The directive was issued by the Special Court for People’s Representatives. The local police actuated their decision, in this case, filing FIR against Sitharaman and many others. In a hitherto-new mechanism called electoral bonds that were announced by the central government in the last budget of 2018, it aimed at making the political donations more transparent as these could be made in bonds rather than in cash. However, the scheme came under severe attack and was described by the Supreme Court as “unconstitutional” in February. It ruled that it violated the rights of citizens to information about political funding, causing a wide debate over its implications for democracy.
A Landmark FIR Against a Union Minister
Union Minister HD Kumaraswamy said that people are trying to question the intentions of the calls for resignation. “The CM (Siddaramaiah) is asking for my and Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s resignation. They asked to file an FIR. Did the electoral bond money go to her personal account, why should she resign and why should I resign? You can’t do anything in Gangenahalli denotification issue,” the comments by Kumaraswamy highlight the rising tensions over the electoral bonds scheme and the controversial implications in it.
The FIR registration case against Sitharaman, the very first in this ongoing scrutiny of the mechanisms of funding by politics in India, is indicative of a breakaway question on whether there is proper accountability and transparency in the way practiced in the ethical conduct of public officials. Its fallout may cause wide-ranging effects on the future prospects of political financing and governance in India.