Electoral bonds will perpetuate opacity and malpractice: Congress

New Delhi, Jan 8 : The Congress on Monday said the electoral bonds would not help in furthering transparency and curbing electoral malpractice but ensure that "all funds actually go to the ruling party".

"The electoral bonds are an exercise in perpetuating opacity, non-transparency and electoral malpractice. The reason for that is very simple," said party spokesman Manish Tewari.

"It is very easy for the government to obtain data from the State Bank of India as to which individual, which organisation purchased an electoral bond and which organisation or which political party has encashed that electoral bond. 

"If you are talking in terms of ushering in transparency, essentially what it will do is that no individual or no corporate entity will be able to donate any money to the opposition party because they would be fearful that if they do so, then their businesses will be targeted," he added.

The Congress was reacting to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's statement on Sunday holding that most political parties are "fairly satisfied" with the present system of funding and would not like to move on to a transparent system such as electoral bonds. 

Tewari also said: "This is a grand exercise in actually ensuring that all funds actually go to the ruling party and it has been packaged as an electoral reform. 

"But the moment you unwrap the package, you can very easily discern was to what the real intent of the government is. Electoral bonds will further perpetuate opacity in terms of the funding and financing of India's political system."