Kolkata: Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan demanded state funding for polls to prevent corruption and called for a Special Investigation Team (SIT) under the guidance of Supreme Court to recover money that parties have received through electoral bonds. “Companies paid bribes to get contracts or change norms in policies,” said Bhushan, addressing a seminar on electoral bonds and corruption in Kolkata on Saturday.
The seminar was organized by Desh Bachao Gano Manch, Common Cause and the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information.
The advocate, who has been fighting against corruption for a long time, said ideally, the EC should pay money to the candidates depending on the votes they receive. “The state can fund elections.” He also wanted the EC to consider proportional representation based on votes, so that smaller parties can also have some MPs depending on votes they get. He said that now, the candidate who wins usually receives less than 50% of votes polled, not the majority support.
“The SC had made it clear that it was a process of quid pro quo, and some drug manufacturers who were producing low-quality drugs were given a clean chit after they paid around Rs 1,000 crore to coffers of BJP through electoral bonds. So, there should be a probe under the Prevention of Corruption Act,” Bhushan said.
Bhushan also criticized the Lokpal for being proactive against Mahua Moitra to start a probe in the cash-for-question episode but remained idle against BJP.