State funding as remedy to check misuse of money power in politics is advocated by many as it can:

♤ Provide level playing field to all in the political fray.

♤ By infusing white money in politics limit the use of black money.

♤ Limit the influence of interested money and thereby help curb corruption.

♤ Make it possible for the State to encourage or demand best electoral practices from political parties and candidates.

However, there are many limitations to such an idea:

♤ Conceptually, state funding of elections is based on presumption that there would be then no private funding. EC does not have wherewithal to ensure that.

♤ Elections are a democratic participatory process. Elector should be allowed to support party he is ideologically aligned to. State funding of elections is therefore antithetical to democracy itself.

♤ It would put a huge burden on public exchequer.

♤ A 2003 federal study in the US found it ineffective. Also, experience in Italy, Spain, Australia and Israel showed it neither restricted the sources of funding nor reduced election expenditure — the two main objectives.

This issue has been examined earlier by many committees: the Tarkunde Committee, the Indrajit Gupta Committee (1998), the Committee on Constitutional Reforms and the Law Commission (2015). Interestingly, none of them have unequivocally supported introduction of state funding. State funding of elections is part of a possible solution, though state funding by itself will not do away with the nexus of black money and electoral politics.