All political parties with national status, except the Bharatiya Janata Party, have rejected the Central Information Commission’s (CIC) verdict bringing them under the ambit of Right to Information (RTI) Act.
The parties had opposed the appeals filed by Association for Democratic Reforms and RTI activist, Subhash Chandra Aggarwal, seeking access to information about the national political parties.
The Congress said such an “adventurist approach” would harm democratic institutions. “It is not acceptable. We totally disagree with it,” Congress General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi said. He said entangling political parties in such unnecessary things would damage the democratic process.
The BJP, however, welcomed the verdict. The party’s spokesperson, Captain Abhimanyu, said BJP would follow the law. “BJP is not against anything that brings transparency and accountability which is equally applicable to all. We will follow the law,” he said.
The CPI(M) and CPI have also opposed the verdict. The CPI (M) Polit Bureau said the verdict was based on a fundamental misconception about the role of political parties in a Parliamentary democracy.
The party said the CIC’s statement that the six national parties were substantially financed by the Central Government was untrue “because the bulk of the funding and finances for the parties do not come from the Government or any State institution. In fact, the CPI(M) does not even accept funds from corporates, which is legally permissible,” the party added.
The Janata Dal (United) expressed shock at the verdict. Party President Sharad Yadav said political parties were not shops and urged the Centre to stop the CIC from making such moves.
The ADR, meanwhile, said there was no basis in the political parties’ argument that they were not public entities.
The onus of providing information about the matters related to political parties, after the CIC order, lies with political parties, so that citizens do not need to run around accessing this information from other authorities, the ADR said in a statement.
The organisation said at the moment parties only disclosed information on contributions over and above Rs 20,000.