CURRENT ISSUE MAY 22, 2006

Ahead of the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, BJP leaders went ballistic over the India Shinning campaign but later the feel good factor wore out and L.K. Advani had to admit that the campaign was inappropriate. The exchequer also paid a price which is said to have ranged between Rs 65 crore and Rs 600 crore. The party had claimed that it had paid for most of the campaign but while being in government it must have been difficult to resist using funds of central ministries and departments for publicity. Splurging public money during elections can be restricted if electoral reforms are initiated but the problem seems to be with political consciousness.

The lack of consensus among political parties has paled all prospects of the UPA Government's attempts to subsidise parliamentary and assembly elections. Following a Union Cabinet clearance on December 22 last year of the Law Ministry proposal to partially fund polls through the general exchequer, the Election Commission had conveyed a meeting of all national and regional parties on February 15. The Nirvachan Bhawan dialogue between politicians and chief election commissioner B.B. Tandon remained inconclusive with the AIADMK and CPI(M) among top opponents to the government proposal. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.Jayalalithaa's party is of the view that public financing of polls will burden the exchequer which anyway has many roads, hospitals and schools to build. The CPI(M) which often complains about the lack of resources during elections has raised its objections to what it calls the government's inability to clearly define methods of funding. "We don't understand how the public financing will be affected since polls are already being subsidised to some extent by the Election Commission," says CPI(M) MP Mohammed Salim. The free broadcast space provided to political parties on public channels Doordarshan and All-India Radio for election campaigns and the commission's free offer of electoral rolls to candidates during polls are currently supported by the consolidated fund. Additionally, the commission bears the cost of deploying security personnel, training election officers, setting up polling stations and voting machines. The 2004 Lok Sabha elections witnessed an outflow of over Rs 900 crore from the exchequer on such accounts.

The six national parties - Congress, BJP, CPI, CPI(M), BSP and NCP - along with 43 other regional parties have submitted their individual recommendations to the Commission which it will have to evaluate in the coming days as Law Minister H.R. Bharadwaj recently told Parliament that the Government was "awaiting the commission's response." After the meeting at the commission, Congress spokesperson A. Singhvi endorsed the Centre's decision to legislate the state funding proposal. The Opposition, an active votary, also pledged its in-principal approval of the move. BJP leader V.K. Malhotra is understood to have said at the meeting that political corruption could be curbed if the measure was implemented. But his party ally, the Shiromani Akali Dal along with UPA constituent NCP, raised their doubts on whether the move would check corruption. While differing in their approaches to the suggestion, politicians largely desire that a legislation enabling partial coverage of elections through public money should soon be passed by Parliament. Average voters though may be skeptical of such an electoral reform since according to estimates drawn out seven years ago by the Indrajit Gupta committee, a minimum of Rs 600 crore would be required each year to meet half of the expenses of funding elections. While the first proposal to have the general exchequer pay for polls was suggested by the Dinesh Goswami committee almost 16 years earlier, it was only late last year that a forward movement in accepting the recommendations were noticed.
During the previous NDA Government's tenure, the then deputy prime minister L.K. Advani had asked the Law Ministry to work on the modalities of accepting the Indrajit Gupta panel's recommendations but files apparently remained with the Law Ministry itself. According to Cabinet secretary B.K. Chaturvedi, discussions between the commission and Centre though underway, will take a while before the intended legislation is placed as a bill in Parliament. "Currently the Law Ministry and Election Commission are studying the scope of the proposal and they will work out a framework," says Chaturvedi.

Commission officials themselves are uncertain about placing a draft bill in the ongoing Budget session of Parliament. With Assam, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Kerala and West Bengal scheduled to face Assembly elections within the next four months, the anxiety of political parties especially the Congress appears palpable. Major regional players like SP, RJD, Trinamool Congress, Janata Party and Shiv Sena have joined the banter in favour of state funding. The Cabinet proposal places the onus of incurring election expenses on both the Centre and states as earlier recommended by the Gupta Committee. The panel had also suggested that the polls be subsidised only in kind.
Under probable amenities for recognised parties to be publicly financed the Government has included suitable rent-free accommodation for party headquarters, rent-free telephone and free time slots on private TV networks. For candidates of recognised parties, the Centre has proposed that specific quantities of fuel, paper for printing party messages, postal stamps and loudspeakers during campaigns, food and refreshments at the polling booths be funded by the public.
Will the measure curb corruption? Although the amount to be paid for subsidising polls may be nominal, from an elector's perspective the question may be relevant. According to former Reserve Bank governor Jalan, state-funding of elections can take care of the desperation for money among parties. "Parties and individuals need money to contest elections and to maintain a minimum resource pool to stay in public life. State funding may enable a more equitable distribution of election funds and check corrupt practices," he says.

The creation of a corpus for the purpose will not add to the voter's burden because each person may need to pay just Rs 10 per year. That is if Rs 600 crore is to be spent annually on funding elections as per recommendations of the Indrajit Gupta panel. While Rs 3,000 crore will be the Centre's cumulative expenditure in five years, the state exchequers will have to pitch in with the remaining amount of Rs 3,000 crore for the same period, taking the total expense of public funding to Rs 6,000 crore every five years. The Election Commission is yet to quantify expenses presently undertaken by candidates or parties themselves. Issues like corporate donations will have to be critically studied by the Commission before coming out with any guidelines since a political consensus on the matter seems unlikely. The Gupta Committee too could not reach a consensus on this.
Most parties appear to agree with the panel's suggestion that a separate corpus should be made for the purpose and utilised for transportation costs, logistical support or printing campaign literature of political outfits or individual candidates. Yet, sections of the political class also think that public funding should be restricted only to elections and not extended to maintaining headquarters of political parties. The panel which was chaired by the late Communist veteran Indrajit Gupta had among its members some from the contemporary creed including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and Malhotra. Financially weaker parties urge the Commission to ensure a level-playing field seeking revision of the 2003 election rules which caps a candidate's expense at Rs 25 lakh for a Parliamentary seat and Rs 10 lakh for an Assembly poll. Their wish is to have expenditure ceiling on parties as well

The Election Commission and Law Ministry are considering monitoring the movement of money in and out of the planned corpus as top priority for future implementation of the proposal while simultaneously studying public funding of parties and campaigns globally. In the US where presidential polls are funded by the state, its Federal Commission is expected to maintain a detailed record of poll-related expenditure. Many East European nations have witnessed varying degrees of success in the direct annual subsidies they provide for elections there. Back home as political parties gear up to woo the public, it is imperative to ask if such electoral reforms will also enable people to recall the representatives they elect?

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