Gadkari said the intention behind the electoral bonds scheme was good and that no party could survive without funds

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said that a political party could not function without funding and that the Center had implemented the electoral bonds program in 2017 with “good intention,” but it was later declared unlawful by the Supreme Court.

In the event that the Supreme Court issues any more directives on the subject, all political parties must convene and consult, according to the senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He said this on Friday at a media house-organized event at GIFT City, which is close to Gandhinagar. “I participated in that conversation (about electoral bonds) when Arun Jaitely was the Union finance minister.” A group without resources cannot live. Political parties are financed by governments in some nations. In India, such a system does not exist. In response to a query on electoral bonds, Gadkari remarked, “Therefore, we decided on this system of financing political parties.”

He pointed out that the primary goal of electoral bonds was to provide political parties with direct funding, with the caveat that the identities of contributors be kept secret to avoid “problems if the party in power changes.”

Political parties need money to operate their operations, just as media outlets need sponsors to support events, according to the minister of roads, transportation, and highways.

“You must see the situation on the ground. How are elections intended to be fought by parties? We implemented this electoral bond scheme in order to increase transparency. Therefore, when we introduced electoral bonds, it was with good intentions. All parties will come together and discuss it jointly if the Supreme Court finds any flaws in it and requests that we fix them,” the former head of the BJP said.

“Everyone must discover an open method (of funding parties) for the sake of our nation and values-based democracy. Since parties are unable to function without funding, the minister said.

Ahead of the April–May Lok Sabha elections, the Supreme Court struck down the electoral bonds programme in a historic ruling last month. The plan, according to the Supreme Court, infringes on both the right to information and the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by the Constitution.

Since then, the Election Commission has received several sets of data from the State Bank of India (SBI) on the electoral bonds, including information about the cash that political parties received under the program.