Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said electoral bonds were an honest effort by his government to eliminate the role of black money in elections, but the Opposition made baseless allegations about it, and the country has been “driven” towards black money again, which all parties will regret once they reflect on it.

The Prime Minister was answering questions during an interview with ANI on several important issues including the electoral bonds scheme which has been scrapped by the Supreme Court.

Asked whether the government had bungled on the issue, the Prime Minister said the country had debated for long the role of black money in elections, and that there was a need to do something about it. He said money is spent during elections; all parties do it, and it is collected from people.

“I wanted to make an effort to save elections from black money, and we looked for ways to do it. Those criticizing it today had supported it in Parliament debates,” Mr Modi said.

He said he wanted transparency, and knew always there can be shortcoming in any effort. The government ended the currency of Rs 1000 and Rs 2000 notes, as they are the most used during elections.

Then, the Supreme Court had allowed cash collections of Rs 20,000 each, but he reduced it to Rs 2,500 through rules, because he did not want cash transactions. In the past, the BJP had proposed contributions by cheques, but these were not acceptable to businessmen.

The Prime Minister said if there were no electoral bonds, the money trail could never be found. “The election bond success story is that at least we can see the money trail, I don’t say there cannot be shortcomings; but we have driven the country towards black money again, all will regret it, when they reflect on it.”

He said only 3000 companies are in electoral bonds, only 26 companies were such proceeded against by agencies and just 16 companies of them had bought bonds against whom raids had taken place. Out of these 16 companies’ contribution, 37 per cent came to the BJP and 63 per cent went to the Opposition, he said.

This gives the picture, he said, “will companies give money to the Opposition after ED raids. But the Opposition has to make allegations and run away after that.”

Answering a question on ED and CBI action against the Opposition, he said the Opposition is talking of no level playing ground but no law was made by his government, “we reformed the Election Commission, earlier PM could make anybody election Commissioners and they became Rajya Sabha members, and candidates in elections.”