Arun Jaitely News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

I do not have the numbers, but I am sure of winning the maximum seats and getting the largest vote share.

  Prepared to embark on its solo electoral journey in Punjab for the first time since 1996, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has reached the final stages of selecting candidates for all 13 Lok Sabha seats in the State. After thorough consultations and deliberations involving party seniors and

Union minister Nitin Gadkari has said it was not possible to run a political party without funds, and added that the Centre had thus introduced the electoral bonds scheme, now struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

"When Arun Jaitely was (Union finance) minister, I was part of that discussion (regarding electoral bonds). No party can survive without resources. In some countries, governments fund political parties. There is no such system in India. Thus, we chose this system of financing political parties," said Gadkari on a question about electoral bonds. He noted the main intention behind introducing electoral bonds was that political parties get funds directly, but the names (of donors) are not disclosed because "problems arise if the party in power changes".

The Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment last month, annulled the electoral bonds scheme ahead of the April-May Lok Sabha polls