By K Raveendran
When the Supreme Court of India struck down the electoral bond scheme introduced under the government led by Narendra Modi, it did so on the realisation that the anonymity offered by the bonds, far from curing the malaise of black money, had institutionalised it. But the alternative of electoral trusts that the court suggested has provided a bigger camouflage for black money and illegal gratification.
What has unfolded since the ban, however, complicates that neat constitutional logic. The first year without bonds has not ushered in a golden age of clean funding. Instead, it has exposed the brittleness of India’s political finance architecture and the limits of judicial remedies when political incentives remain unchanged. Reports indicate that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has garnered an overwhelming share of declared political donations, as much as 85 per cent of the total, dwarfing the resources available to its rivals. The concentration of funds is not merely a statistical curiosity; it speaks to the power asymmetry that now defines the electoral arena. If the stated goal of reform was a level playing field, the outcome appears to tilt it even further.
The worrying aspect is that the voluntary contributions received by the BJP in 2024-25 rose almost 54 per cent to Rs. 6125 crore from Rs. 3967 crore in 2023-24 with an increase of Rs. 2158 crore during the year. This compensates the BJP much more than its loss through electoral bonds. The ruling party at the centre got only Rs. 1686 crore in 2023-24 through electoral bond route. The Congress on the other hand had an income of only Rs. 918 crore during 2024-25. The contributions saw a 54 per cent dip during the year. This huge difference in the financial resources power of the two major national political parties, makes a mockery of level playing field in the elections.
Defenders of the post-bond landscape argue that at least the bonds’ opacity has been removed and that the public can now see who reports what. Critics counter that this misses the larger point. Political finance does not operate in a vacuum of good faith. When formal channels become inconvenient or risky, money does not evaporate; it adapts. The fear voiced quietly across party lines is that the disappearance of bonds has nudged donors back towards cash or other undisclosed routes, recreating the very shadows the court sought to dispel. In that sense, the cure risks becoming worse than the disease. An anonymous but bank-mediated instrument has been replaced by a fragmented ecosystem where disclosure is partial and enforcement uncertain.
The deeper problem lies in the structural imbalance between the ruling party and the opposition. Access to state power brings with it visibility, influence over policy signals, and the ability to reassure donors of stability and returns. Even without explicit quid pro quo, businesses read the political weather. When one party dominates fundraising to such an extent, the market for political donations ceases to be competitive. Smaller parties and challengers are left scrambling, not because their ideas lack resonance, but because their coffers do. Democracy, in such conditions, risks sliding from a contest of visions to a test of financial endurance.
This imbalance has ramifications beyond campaign arithmetic. The analysis becomes more troubling when political funding patterns are read alongside governance outcomes. Observers have pointed to a proportionate rise in highway collapses and other infrastructure failures that appears to mirror the surge in funds flowing to the ruling party. Correlation is not causation, and it would be irresponsible to draw straight lines without rigorous evidence. Yet the perception matters. Large, centralised political war chests can encourage a culture where regulatory oversight is softened and accountability diluted, particularly in sectors like infrastructure where contracts are vast, timelines compressed, and public safety at stake. When failures occur with unsettling frequency, citizens naturally ask whether political money has distorted priorities.
The electoral bond verdict was celebrated as a triumph of constitutional morality over executive convenience. It reaffirmed that the right to information includes knowing who funds those who seek power. But the aftermath suggests that judicial interventions, however principled, cannot by themselves re-engineer political behaviour. Electoral trusts, the alternative favoured by the court, demand compliance and robust monitoring. Without a strong, independent enforcement regime, they risk becoming another formal shell, observed more in the breach than the practice. The persistence of opacity in new forms raises an uncomfortable question about institutional responsibility.
Courts are rightly cautious about overstepping into policy domains. Yet when a judicially mandated change produces outcomes that arguably undermine the very values it sought to protect, can the judiciary avert its gaze? Constitutional adjudication does not end with the pronouncement of a judgment; it carries an implicit duty to remain attentive to consequences, especially when fundamental democratic principles are involved. This does not mean micromanaging political finance, but it does require acknowledging empirical realities and being open to course correction.
The present moment calls for intellectual honesty across institutions. For the executive and legislature, it means recognising that dominance in fundraising may win elections but erodes trust in the long run. For opposition parties, it requires moving beyond rhetorical outrage to propose credible, transparent funding models that can command public confidence. For civil society and the media, it demands sustained scrutiny that links political finance to governance outcomes without succumbing to sensationalism. And for the judiciary, it raises the question of whether constitutional guardianship is a one-time act or an ongoing engagement.
The electoral bond episode has already reshaped the debate on money and politics. It has stripped away the comforting illusion that a single instrument can cleanse a system riddled with incentives for opacity. What remains is a harder, more uncomfortable task: building a culture of disclosure that survives changes in law and power. That task cannot be outsourced to courts alone, but neither can courts wash their hands of it once the unintended effects become visible. (IPA Service)
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