Karnataka BJP MP bats for state funding of elections in Rajya Sabha

Participating in the Motion of Thanks to the President's address in the Upper House, Lahar Singh Siroya said, 'In order to clean up our very expensive election system, rid it of black money, and free it from the clutches of a few rich people, state funding of elections should be seriously considered.'

New Delhi: BJP Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka Lahar Singh Siroya has urged the Centre to consider state funding of elections to get rid of using black money in the polls.

Participating in the Motion of Thanks to the President's address in the Upper House, he said, “In order to clean up our very expensive election system, rid it of black money, and free it from the clutches of a few rich people, state funding of elections should be seriously considered.”

He also suggested that the government constitute a committee to recommend on how state funding can be done for the polls.

“There have been many committees in the past that have addressed this idea like the Dinesh Goswami Committee, the Inderjit Gupta Committee and the Law Commission in 1999. There may have been other committees too, but the important thing is every committee made a positive recommendation about this idea. When these committees deliberated on this idea, the money being spent for elections was relatively smaller. It has now exploded and become far more expensive,” he said.

Pointing out that the issue of state funding was debated in the Parliament earlier also, he said though the idea has not been rejected, nobody has shown the conviction to take it forward. Since the NDA government is planning to implement 'One Nation One Election,' suggestion of state funding polls should also be explored, he added.

"Today we came to such a situation that even for gram panchayat polls, people are spending in crores. If it continued like this, it would be a serious threat to our democracy. Money is becoming the biggest entry barrier to get into politics for good people. Though there were rules to curb money power, it has never worked. Therefore state funding of elections may be the only solution," he said.