{"id":52859,"date":"2019-10-06T15:32:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T10:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogadmin.forumias.com\/?page_id=52859"},"modified":"2019-10-06T15:32:38","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T10:02:38","slug":"answered-for-containment-of-corruption-and-holding-government-accountable-to-the-governed-it-is-important-to-make-political-parties-accountable-under-rti-comment","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/answered-for-containment-of-corruption-and-holding-government-accountable-to-the-governed-it-is-important-to-make-political-parties-accountable-under-rti-comment\/","title":{"rendered":"[Answered] \u201cFor containment of corruption and holding government accountable to the governed it is important to make political parties accountable under RTI.\u201d Comment."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Demand of the question<\/strong>
Introduction. <\/strong>Contextual Introduction.
Body. <\/strong>Why Political Parties should be bought under RTI ambit?
Conclusion. <\/strong>Way forward. <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

Right to Information (RTI) Act has played role in ensuring transparency and accountability in the administration, empowering people with information and increase their participation in the governance of the country. Politicians are people\u2019s representatives and it is important that they must be responsible and accountable to general public. Thus, it is important that political parties must come under RTI to uphold the principle of accountability and transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Political Parties should be bought\nunder RTI ambit?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Elections\nare contested on party basis and Political Parties affect the lives of\ncitizens, directly or indirectly and are continuously engaged in performing\npublic duty. Thus it is important that political parties should be under RTI,\nto make them accountable.<\/li>
  2. It\nis important to bring financial transparency, given that 75% of funds received\nby political parties today are from anonymous sources. This would help check\ncorporate-politician nexus, role of black money and foreign influence.<\/li>
  3. Bringing\npolitical parties under RTI would help to check corruption and nepotism within\nthe political parties. This will be in line with the recommendations of ECI and\nLaw commission for bringing Transparency in the political parties.<\/li>
  4. Political\nparties under RTI would lead to informed citizenry and thus would lead to better\ndecision making by the voters.<\/li>
  5. Electoral\nBonds which are launched to make elections fair and transparent are not\npromoting transparency in political funding as donors remain anonymous to\npublic.<\/li>
  6. Not\nonly funding but expenditure made by political parties, especially during the\ntime of elections should be made public. Currently in India, there is no\nceiling on expenditure incurred by the political parties at the time of\nelections.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Way forward:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Money\nshould not be given to political parties as this creates a nexus between the\nfunders and the political parties, thus affecting policy formulation in the\ncountry. Instead, a National Election Fund should be created for receiving the\ndonations from people. The money received should be used for conducting\nelections.<\/li>
    2. Eliminating\nthe root cause of requirement of money i.e. banning election rallies and\nroadshows, but direct connect with people needs to be ensured.<\/li>
    3. The\n‘First Past the Post System’, in which a person with the highest votes (even\nwith one extra vote) is declared winner, should be changed. Rather, a minimum\npercentage of total votes polled, should be fixed for declaring a candidate\nwinner.<\/li>
    4. Flow\nof black money into election process needs to taken care off.<\/li>
    5. There\nneeds to be a scrutiny of manifestos issued by political parties. Also, one or\ntwo months before elections, manifestos should be issued so that people can\nunderstand and discuss things mentioned in them.<\/li>
    6. Electoral\nSystem needs to be such that a sitting MLA or an MP has to resign from the\ncurrent seat before filing the nomination for the other seat. This will help in\nsaving expenditure on bypolls.<\/li>
    7. Even\nin case of simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, a system\nis needed to tackle the dissolution of assemblies and vacancies that can occur\nduring a ruling period.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Initiative from public is needed to make electoral reforms happen fast. Political parties play a significant role in the functioning of the democracy. It is important to ensure transparency and accountability in their working. Bringing them under RTI is one way to achieve this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Demand of the question Introduction. Contextual Introduction. Body. Why Political Parties should be bought under RTI ambit? Conclusion. Way forward. Right to Information (RTI) Act has played role in ensuring transparency and accountability in the administration, empowering people with information and increase their participation in the governance of the country. Politicians are people\u2019s representatives and… Continue reading [Answered] \u201cFor containment of corruption and holding government accountable to the governed it is important to make political parties accountable under RTI.\u201d Comment.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":49132,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-52859","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/52859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/52859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}