The Election Commission must frame more realistic rules for poll expenditure
• In Punjab, a month before elections, liquor stocks shot up from 2 lakh to 19 lakh litres.
• In Karnataka, water and milk tankers were found to have secret chambers for liquor.
• Schoolchildren were used to transport liquor bottles in their school bags during elections.
• Truckloads of cricket gear were distributed during Assembly elections in Karnataka as it was cricket season.
• The Election Commission detected unusual bookings and sale of motorcycles in Goa. Some candidates distributed vouchers for motorcycles, encashable if they won the election.
These are some of the most telling disclosures made by the Election Commission of India on the methods deployed to ensure victory by some of the candidates who contested Election 2009. A total of 8,070 candidates were in the fray, including 556 women. According to reports, an estimated Rs 15,000 crore was spent by politicians, including the Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The Election Commission stipulates a ceiling of Rs 25 lakh on expenditure by a Lok Sabha candidate. The figures speak for themselves.
A survey by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS) pegs the estimated amount spent on the Lok Sabha polls at about Rs 10,000 crore. The average expenditure per candidate comes to Rs 1.23 crore. Significantly, this does not include the expenditure incurred by the political parties. The survey indicates that the Congress and BJP spent Rs 1,000 crore each. The total amount spent by all the political parties in this election was Rs 4,500 crore.
(According to the survey, government spending on the polls came to about Rs 2,000 crore, including about Rs 1,300 crore by the Election Commission and Rs 700 crore by various Central and state government agencies on photo identity cards, EVMs, polling booths and so on.)
The revelations by the Election Commission and the CMS survey constitute the proverbial tip of the iceberg. A top leader of a political party other than the Congress, who contested from a town bordering Delhi, reportedly spent Rs 50 crore.
The fault lies with the basic premise. How can a candidate who declares his assets as worth Rs 800 crore when filing nomination papers be expected to confine his poll expenditure to a paltry Rs 25 lakh?
We have a tendency to look to the West to bolster our arguments. Well, look at poll expenditure in the US. According to information available with the US Federal Election Commission, Barack Obama topped the expenditure of all Presidential candidates till date by spending over $760 million – over double the $358 million spent by his Republican rival, John McCain. Another Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, spent about $244 million. Collectively, the candidates in the last US Presidential election spent close to $1.8 billion (nearly Rs 8,000 crore). The point is that the collection of the funds from 4.5 million supporters was publicly known. In India, nobody knows the source and amount of funding of politicians.
On May 5, Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi remarked at a press conference in Delhi that everybody knows there is Indian black money abroad and a solution has to be collectively worked out. But what about the black money circulating within the country in the quest for power, position and fame?
The Election Commission imposes a code of conduct, worked out with the consensus of political parties, that restricts use of vehicles, posters, public address systems and rallies. Admittedly, the Commission has succeeded in cleaning up the state of affairs to a considerable extent. But it is high time it ponders the facilities it allows to a candidate who has to reach the approximately 10 lakh voters in a Lok Sabha constituency, that too within 15-20 days.
Since an election can obviously not be fought within a budget of Rs 25 lakh, the Commission and the political parties should reach a consensus about a reasonable amount for Parliamentary and Assembly elections. The nation cannot be a mature and vibrant democracy when its elections are consistently marked by non-disclosure and concealment of facts.
The candidates in the US Presidential election spent close to $1.8 billion (nearly Rs 8,000 crore). The collection of the funds from 4.5 million supporters was publicly known. In India, nobody knows the source and amount of funding of politicians
• Out of 535 MPs, 98 have not furnished PAN details.
• Out of 204 Congress MPs, 39 (19%) have not furnished PAN details. Out of 116 BJP MPs, 16 (14%) have not furnished PAN details.
• Out of 300 crorepati MPs, 25 have not furnished PAN details. The list includes Rajkumari Ratna Singh, Congress MP from UP who has assets worth Rs 67 crore and Congress MP Vincent Pala from Shillong who has assets worth Rs 25 crore.
• Of these 25 crorepati MPs, eight have criminal cases against them. There are 17 serious charges under the Indian Penal Code against them, including attempt to murder (against two MPs), robbery, dacoity and forgery.
Editor, gfiles
