Transparent funding of political parties in India

Two more steps to reduce corruption

By demonetising INR 500 and INR 1,000 currency notes, the Indian government has required 1250 million Indian citizens to prove that they possess only rightfully earned (i.e., declared to tax authorities) 'white money' and to pay tax plus 200% penalty on anything not rightfully earned (i.e., not previously declared to tax authorities) 'black money'. Reasons put forward are to reduce corruption in the Indian economy and push more transactions through banking system.

Government with such determination and national interest at its heart must find following two small steps quite easy to implement.

1. Require all political parties to publish audited financial statements for past five years online and stop parties from making any payments over INR 500 in cash.

2. Empower the Indian Election Commission to require all candidates for elections to state assemblies and national parliament to file a statement of intended campaign budget amount and sources of that amount along with nomination form and affidavit. Subsequent to election all candidates should provide a reconciliation statement of their budgeted expenditure on campaign and actual expenditure. Needless to say all transactions should have been made through banking system only.