In a season of scams, the biggest one has gone undetected, that of black money spent in every election. Politicians typically shrug it off, saying that historically they have always entered Parliament with a 'lie on our lips'. Except that, now, the lie has gotten bigger. It is, by one estimate, the Rs. 81,500 crore lie. Many say electoral reforms can tackle this. But we expose how political parties have sabotaged every attempt to clean up a political system rife with corruption, criminality and lack of internal democracy.New Delhi: The current Chief Election Commissioner, SY Qureshi, told us emphatically, "You know the elections have become biggest source of corruption."
BJP President, Nitin Gadkari agrees, "Yes, it is a major problem, naked fact."
JP Narayan of Loksatta, an NGO working for democratic reforms says, "Once you start elections in this manner, corruption, on a monumental scale, is inevitable."
Another group which has helped bring in greater transparency in the system is Association for Democratic Reforms or ADR. Trilochan Sastry, one of its founders, says, "We believe that black money spent in elections is the root cause of corruption."
Every day, India's super rich politicians make news, for the staggering rise in their assets or for their jail visits.
Some of the best kept secrets of our election system have now come tumbling out, due to the work of groups like ADR and Loksatta among others. They have relentlessly fought for greater disclosure by political parties and have brought in a much needed insight into the money game.
After Anna Hazare's high profile anti-corruption movement for a Lokpal, this has been signaled as their next target, jolting the government into action.
Of the three key areas of reforms - tackling money power by bringing in financial transparency, pushing political parties towards inner party democracy as well as keeping out candidates charged with serious criminal offences.
The government in all its wisdom has decided to zero in on one area - barring all candidates with criminal charges, for which, major changes are on their way. Earlier one could be barred once convicted but now, one can be barred, even if charges are framed in heinous crimes.
Law Minister Salman Khurshid, speaking on this says, "If convictions could be done quickly, if trials could proceed within six months' time. Can we prevent people against whom charges are framed and serious cases where charges are framed, that we impose upon them the same qualification, there is after conviction. But obviously this will last only till such time as the conviction or an acquittal comes."
If this is passed and becomes law, it could have a dramatic impact on our current Parliament. (
ADR's list of MPs who face potential disqualification)
This would include high profile national leaders like Laloo Prasad Yadav, charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act, well known cricketer, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Yogi Aditya Nath of the BJP charged under Section 302, for crimes related to murder, to notorious MPs like Kameshwar Baitha of the JMM and Kapil Muni Karwariya of the BSP charged for dacoity and murder.
But the new law also lists Section 153 (a) which is for "Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony".
This section will hit the BJP the hardest as a number of its top leaders, face potential debarment, including, LK Advani, charged under that section in the Babri Masjid Case and Dr MM Joshi, who faces charges in the same case.
Varun Gandhi too would come under the purview of this as he has been charged under 153(a) for his 2009 hate speech.
BJP Spokesperson, Ravi Shankar Prasad, reacts, "We can comment only when we have seen the draft. But if the draft is designed to prevent the opposition or major political parties, for instance we know that Digvijaya Singh will never be charged under that section even though he goes and says that the Batla House people are innocent."
Even if this controversial law does go through, there is no real clarity, on the bigger menace, of money power in elections. The political parties admit this as an embarrassing, but unavoidable reality, going back in time.
Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and senior BJP member, Arun Jaitley says, "I remember somebody saying years ago that every parliamentarian, when he enters Parliament, starts his career with a false declaration, that of expenditure."
Except that this historic lie has become bigger, maybe bigger than any of today's scams.
Every scam needs a figure to make it real. That is what Trilochan Sastry and his group, Association for Democratic Reforms, has been up to. They've been working on election reforms for a very long time and putting together data to have an estimate, or rather a guesstimate, of how much money is actually spent in elections, and not just what is declared.
Speaking of their past work, Trilochan Sastry says, "It's also based on our own election watch-work which we've been doing around the country for several years as well as our own field-based experiences. These are conservative estimates."
To look at it, one-by-one, ADR analysed how much is spent in each of these different elections. In the Lok Sabha elections ADRs approximates 1600 serious candidates. There are 543 seats and an average of three serious candidates per seat. That is an average, and it could be more but we are keeping it a bit conservative. The average spending per candidate is between Rs 3 crore to Rs 5 crore, and so the total spent is Rs 5000 crore to Rs 8000 crore in one Lok Sabha election. But what they report, according to the affidavits submitted, is barely a fraction of that.
Sastry says, "That's right. This is a strange contradiction. On the one hand we have some people, including the politicians, saying that the election limits are very unrealistic, while on the other hand what they are reporting is much less than the official limit."
Now looking at the Assembly elections where there are 12000 serious candidates, which is about three per constituency. They spend Rs 1 crore to Rs 3 crore on an average, taking the total to between Rs 12000 crore to Rs 36000 crore in one cycle of Assembly elections. What is reported however is barely 10 per cent of that.
ADR included two other election areas that don't get much focus - municipalities and Panchayats. For big city Municipalities the average spend is Rs. 50 lakhs to Rs. 1 crore - a very high figure for a small scale election.
Looking at the last area, the Panchayat elections, is perhaps one that gets absolutely no attention but is the real sting in the tail. There are 71 lakh serious candidates across the three tiers of the Panchayat system; district, block and gram sabha, with an average spend of Rs 25000 to Rs 50000. The limits vary from state to state so while some districts, allow you to spend up to Rs 1 lakh, in others the limit is only Rs 5000. So this Rs 25000 to Rs 50000 limit has nothing to do with the official limit but is just an estimate of what an average candidate spends. The total spend then comes to a staggering figure, Rs 17000 crore to Rs 35000 crore for Panchayat elections in the entire country.
When added, all these figures of the total amount spent, the final figure, which is the blockbuster number of is anywhere between Rs 35000 crore to Rs 81000 crore.
Sastry puts it into perspective, "The CAG figure for the 2G scam was just twice that number of Rs 81000 crore. A 2G scam hopefully happens only once in a nation's life but this is happening in every round of elections." (
ADR's list of entire data details)
The question remains, how can money power be fought? When asked, politicians say they are for greater financial transparency.
Gadkari says, "We are only taking money and we preferably take money only by cheque."
Khurshid too defends his party, "We tried to rationalise and put in some transparency in our party, in party funding."
Mulayam Singh Yadav, president of the Samajwadi Party says, "
Hamein black money waale kaun puchte hain? Kahin dekha koi milta hamse?" (Do people with black money acknowledge me? Have you ever seen them meeting me?)
But if financial transparency means filing IncomeTax returns, taking maximum payments by cheque, declaring those details, then parties have failed on all counts.
When activists asked for their tax returns to be declared under the Right to Information Act, political parties fought it every inch of the way in their submissions to the Chief Information Commissioner.
The Congress Party objected saying "The Applicant/Appellant is a busy body having malafide intent and that they are seeking the information for ulterior motives."
BJP said, "IT Returns were confidential information, parting with which, will amount to infringement of certain privacy rights of the members of the political parties."
BSP too disagreed, "The Income Tax Department cannot divulge such confidential information to strangers and thereby become party to political maneuverings of the rival political parties which is not the object and purpose of RTI."
SP said, "Information has been asked for with a political motive."
DMK too joined in the growing chorus saying, "A request for copies of assessment orders in motivated inasmuch as an appellant has no public knowledge of an assessment made."
The only party to agree to this was the CPI who said, "No objection to declaring information".
Political parties finally did have to declare their returns to public, but just a quick glance at their returns from 2007- 2009 shows, how far away they are from transparency. When declaring their contributions and donations, a majority of that money has come through cash contributions of under Rs. 20,000 which means they don't have to declare their sources.
In this number game, it is BSP which emerges as the worst offender. While it has declared earnings of Rs 200 crores (between 2007-09), not a single rupee has come in by cheque. And obviously, no real answers can be found for it.
When asked of this anomaly, State BSP President and Panchayati Raj Minister in the UP Cabinet, Swami Prasad Maurya says, "
Kala dhan ki rajniti karne wale doosron ko bhi apna jaisa kyun samajhte hain." (People involved in the politics of black money consider others to be like themselves)
The other big player in Uttar Pradesh politics, the SP fares no better. Of the Rs 55 crores earned, only Rs 50 lakhs has come through cheque.
Mulayam Singh Yadav candidly admits, "
Udhoyogopati bevkoof hai ki cheque dega? Sidhi baat khul jayegi ki Mulayam Singh ko paisa diya. Ke isko diya? Aur sarkar phir pareshaan karegi ki tumhara cheque in sab ko diya." (Is an industrialist stupid that he will give a cheque? It will instantly be known whom he has given money to. The government will then harass him)
Coming to national parties, the same phenomenon gets repeated as the BJP, of its Rs. 297 crores donation, only Rs 55 crores came through cheque.
Prasad says, "It is simple. Many legitimate donors are reluctant to give in cash. The BJP in 1990s openly said that we will take money only by cheque but people were not willing."
The Congress has a slightly better strike rate as of its Rs 72 crores contribution, 50 per cent of it Rs 35 crores came through cheques. Looking at their list of donors however is another story. From Torrent, Adani, General Electric, Videocon, Ambuja, many big corporates have given money to the party.
Jagdeep Chhokhar, another of ADR's founding members says, "It is worrying because it tells us the reality the way it is. What you don't see and what you don't know doesn't hurt you. Ignorance in this case is not bliss."
The other big deception is of course, election expenditure. Politicians never tire of saying that the current ceiling of Rs. 40 lakhs for Lok Sabha and Rs. 16 lakhs for Assemblies is too low.
We asked a range of MPs across party lines about this and the answer was a resounding yes to a higher ceiling. Kirit Solanki, BJP MP from Ahmadabad feels, "Ceiling is too small." His fellow party MP, CR Patil from Navasari agrees and says, "
Badhana chahiye yeh main maanta hoon." (I feel it should be raised). Sanjay Nirupam of the Congress says, "Of course that earlier amount was really a very small amount." From the south, DMK MP TKS ELangovan says, "Since expenditure of the propaganda materials like the posters, banners have increased, there is a need to increase the election expenditure limit which is presently in force." BSP MP Ramashankar Rajbhar suggests, "
Kam se kam inhe 50 lakh rupye toh karna hi chahiye." (It should be atleast Rs. 50 lakhs) Even Union cabinet Minister, Khurshid agrees, "If you're asking me in practical terms i think it needs to be raised further."
This may well be true, but in the affidavits filed before the Election Commission, 99 per cent of all candidates who fought Lok Sabha elections, say they have spent 50 per cent or less!
The same MPs were asked about this strange anomaly and nobody really had any concrete answers. BJP's Ahmedabad MP, Solanki says, "See today the price rise is there. Things are getting costlier day by day." While BJP's CR Patil, defends himself, "
Dekhiye mera jo area hai woh toh 16 lakh voters hain aur mera jo limit hai, kareeb 60-70 ki lambai mein hai." (See in my area there are only 16 lakh voters and its only 60-70 km long). Sanjay Nirupam is more defensive and simply says, "Now please don't try and trap me in your agenda. Let us close this topic here only." Caught off guard, Elangovan fumbles, "Yes..No..No..That is different. See all money need not be spent by the candidate himself." BSP's MP Rajbhar is more evasive, "
Agar janata jis neta ke liye khadi ho jaati hai jis party ke liye khadi ho jaati hai, toh apne aap woh kharcha karke chunnav lad deti hai." (The expenses for a candidate who has the popular support of the masses automatically get taken care of). The Law Minister, Khurshid bluntly admits, "To tell you truthfully, we have a very short election now. You can spend as much money as you want before you actually file your nomination."
Jagdeep Chhokhar rues, "Obviously this is large scale lying under oath. Our political class, and a lot of people don't like it when I use that term, but these 6719 people are not all ministers, MPs or MLAs. This is the political class which gives us people who govern us."
Even if tax returns are filed more diligently and affidavits submitted, none of this will stop the crores of black money being distributed in every election in the dead of night.
CEC Qureshi admits his helplessness, "We came up with new expenditure guidelines which we first tried in Bihar and fine tune them on the basis of Bihar experience for the five states. That way we seized money left, right and centre - Rs. 73 crores in five states, Rs. 60 crore in just one state alone. And that shows the magnitude for every crore that we seized 40 - 50 we must have checked because that kind of control we had. But since that much money was in circulation much more must have gone through."
But political parties, at the end of the day, openly admit that ethics comes second and at the end of the day winning elections comes first - whatever it takes.
Jaitley feels, "I don't want to sound hypocritical. At times we do falter in the political system, all parties do falter, because the desire of winnability, as I said, overtakes what are more ethical considerations."
For real electoral reform which many believe holds the key to cleaner politics is greater democracy within political parties, but it takes no great investigative reportage to discover that the culture of high command and democratic despots is only getting worse.
Loksatta's Narayan feels, "Political parties must welcome the finest candidates."
Election Commissioner Qureshi says, "Now if they abide by democracy, there has to be an inner-party democracy."
Narayan says, "For that to happen the parties must become democratic."
Jagdeep goes on to say, "The Supreme Court and the Law Commission are on record saying that it cannot be a democracy outside and a plutocracy, an oligopoly, or an autocracy inside."
The Election Commission website, where parties file details of their organizational elections is a good place to find the repeated use of a key buzzword - consensus. Under this every party can compete for the most democratic party award.
Starting with the party that has redefined the personality cult, BSP's State President, Swami Prasad Maurya began every sentence with an invocation of '
Basapa ki rashtriya adhyaksh evam Uttar Pradesh ki Mukhyamantri, sushri behen Mayawatiji" - ironically defending internal democracy in the BSP.
He goes onto say, "
Rashtriya adhyakhji ne jispe jo kaam saunpa hai, sabhi apne spne kaam ke prati, anushasit sipahi ke roop mein karya karte hain aur yahi karan hai ki aaj isi anushasan ke bina par hi Mayawatiji ke netritva mein bsp din dooni, raat chauguni gati se aage badh rahi hai." (We work like disciplined soldiers to complete the tasks assigned to us by our President. It is because of this discipline that the BSP is progressing at a rapid pace under the leadership of Mayawati).
At the Samajwadi party office, as Mulayam Singh's son and heir apparent Akhilesh Yadav, set off to campaign in a fleet of SUVs, shouts of 'Akhilesh zindabad' resounded in the air.
Mulayam Singh Yadav insists his is a poor party, "
Aur ek hum jaise log mile, dhoti kurta wale." (And then there are dhoti kurta clad people like us).
He also insists that he is elected the party president out of consensus and not fear. He says, "
Kya yeh sab karyakarta nasamajh hai? Yeh jo bheed khadi hai woh log nasamajh hai? Unhe sab pata hai, lekin adhyaksha ke chunav mein Mulayam Singh ke khilaaf kaun ladega? Darr se thodi banate hain humko? Darr se banate hain?" (Are all these party workers stupid? Are the people in the crowd stupid? They know everything. But who will stand against Mulayam Singh in the election for the party president? Why are they not brave enough? Don't say that they aren't brave. Do they elect me out of fear?)
Under the consensus umbrella is also the AIADMK. When asked about lack of internal democracy, AIADMK MP, M. Thambi Durai says, "No a democratic system is there otherwise how the party will run. She is more democratic, she believes in democracy. Whatever u say, other political parties are still worst. Our system is democratically elected."
Even in the party with a difference, the BJP it is felt that decisions are taken by consensus by five people sitting in a room in Nagpur. They decide if Mr. Gadkari is going to be the president or not. Ravi Shankar Prasad rebuts this saying, "First of all I will differ with that completely. Wherever a person is even unanimously elected, a call is taken by the body constitutionally authorized to elect. There have been instances where voting has taken place at the state level, but not at the national level."
When asked why national level elections had not been held he says, "Because this election is by consensus where the body entitled to elect takes the call."
And so can the party which gave birth to the high command culture. Refuting these charges, Khurshid says, "We've had Mrs Gandhi's election, Mr Kesri's election so atleast we've had this. Please tell me another party that has even two such cases of nationwide elections where people have put their ballots and decided who their president would be."
Jagdeep disagrees, "It is amazing to see that in this country and in this society, where elections are fought tooth-and-nail, inner party things are always by consensus. It's actually quite unbelievable and borders on considering the people as being utterly stupid that they would believe this."
We asked the CEC if they could monitor the internal elections of political parties. Qureshi said, "Well, if that happens, it'll be very good. Good for the credibility of our democracy. That is a call that Parliament has to take."
As we left the Election Commissioner, the Chilean Ambassador was visiting to explore a partnership with the Election Commission. The world is queuing up to learn the best of Indian democracy - in the end, it is up to us, to save it from the worst.
Politics is a competitive business. So instead of political parties competing over money or criminals, we could try to force them to compete for cleaner politics. If there was ever a time to centre stage the debate back to ethics - this is that time.
(
With inputs from Niha Masih)