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Back to the story: So, the Central Board of Direct Taxes, under Finance ministry, has issued new forms for filing Income Tax Returns.

These require transaction details of all donations to any political party. Made through any form, cheques, cash or online transfers etc.

Earlier, donors were only required to disclose the total amount they spent on political contributions to claim a tax exemption on it.

Political parties also submit a list of contributions over Rs 20,000 to the Election Commission. Except those through electoral bonds.

Now, the disclosures by individual and all other donors will give the gov't granular, transaction-level data of every donation made to political parties. Donors don't have to disclose who they donated to. But....

With the legal power and tech tools at their disposal, the law enforcement agencies, such as the Enforcement Directorate and Financial Intelligence Unit will get all the info they need. If and when they wish to. At discretion. All behind a curtain of legalised secrecy.

So even if you anonymise your contribution through an electoral trust, the government will know it. Citizens won't.

Remember, even the Election Commission, that's in-charge of ensuring free and fair elections in India, does not have access to such granular information on political donations.

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There is a fair need to check illegitimate cases of taxpayers donating to fake parties and claiming tax deductions.

But as an ex-member of CBDT put it mildly, "This is an overreach".  It does not make political funding transparent. It gives gov't surveillance access at the click of a button. Under tax laws which the gov't can trigger at discretion to scrutinise donors it wants.

The finance ministry's enforcement agency, the Enforcement Directorate already faces credible charges of selectively targeting opposition parties, their leaders and business links.

The Income Tax department recently forced freeze of bank accounts of the principal opposition party Indian National Congress. This at a time when the democracy is gearing up for the national elections.

You can read the full story here in English and here in Hindi.

Or, if you want to hear the story in less than 3 minutes, watch this video.

But, do think, why and what type of transparency do we need for political funding?  Last time the Modi gov't sold a lemon in the name of electoral bonds, so it's useful to understand how we 'operationalise' transparency better.

Gov't told the court, "Citizens do not have a general right to know regarding the funding of political parties. Right to know is not a general right available to citizens."

The Supreme Court found the partial anonymity of electoral bond donations unconstitutional (the gov't knew everything and citizens nothing). This favoured the party in power.

It's not a coincidence that the party at the Centre, which wanted secretive donations, cornered most of the funding through electoral bonds. A whopping Rs.6,566 cr. More than the next 3 biggest parties (size of electoral bond donations) put together.

Now the SC has asked the SBI and Election Commission to disclose details of all donations by Electoral bonds after April 2019. But the court stopped short of setting norms for future -- of what info gov't should gather exclusively and what should be put before public.

This has let the gov't innovate yet again. Now, it's not just electoral bonds. All political donations, through any mode will need to be disclosed in detail in the income tax forms.

Giving the govt a tighter control over political funding.

Why, for years, you read little about Electoral Bonds in legacy media while we, a tiny newsroom, brought out evidence after evidence for four years to show it's a grand scam on democracy? Because you, the citizens fund us. And we focus on investigative journalism.

But such 'dogged' journalism requires immense resources and time. And many people to come together:  @furquansid was the editor and @AnganaCk the factcheck editor. @harshithamanwan put the web and contents in place. It took a village.

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