Campaign Finance Reforms in India: Issues and Challenges

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Campaign Finance Reforms in India: Issues and Challenges increasingly more and more corporates have been moving away from the traditional methods of non-tax compliance to possibly a more robust way of trying to comply with whatever are the statutory tax limits, whether in terms of corporate income-tax or in other taxation statutes. That definitely is having a blow-back effect on political-funding. Increasingly, you would see that more and more money does come in through the regular, accounted cheque process than in briefcases or boxes or sacks or whatever other means of transportation. So, I think, you are possibly seeing some sort of a positive development. On the issue of how we can make this entire process more robust in terms of it being accountable, being up in the public sphere for everybody to look at and then be able to draw conclusions and comment about it—as I said earlier, I really don't have a solution. The more that I have tried to think through the process, the more I am coming to the conclusion that possibly the only manner in which we would really be able to achieve a certain amount of probity in terms of electoral finance or campaign finance or funding of political parties is by looking at a programmatic paradigm shift in the way our polity is structured—which is by insulating the Executive processes completely from the Legislative processes. Now, whether that is feasible or there would be a broad consensus on that, I do not know. These are my personal views and not the views of the Congress Party. I do not think by this superficial policing, even with the best of intentions, we are really getting anywhere in making people observe or adhere to (spending) limits. Mr. Rajiv Pratap Rudy (Member of Parliament, BJP) It just happened that this morning I had called Manish to discuss about Punjab politics. There are two of us sitting here, both spokespersons of our respected political parties and both have been in politics for the last 30 years. I was the president of my college (union), became an MLA in Bihar and have spent 25 www.orfonline.org 9
ORF Seminar Series years doing exactly what a hardcore politician in India does. The same has been the case with Manish. For the last couple of months I have been thinking seriously about campaign finance; today, I am very happy that someone from across the political spectrum has spoken some keywords which are so important. I look at the mess which we have created in the last 64 years. Now I am 50, I became an MLA at 26. Looking back I feel that (a) I have wasted my 25 years and (b) I have to do something. On the national canvas we see two things happening in this country which possibly may not be associated. One is the Anna Hazare campaign talking about honesty and corruption, which is obvious. We all are associating with it directly and we are saying that this great thing is happening, that the country needs a debate and there should be honesty and we should have a legislation for the purpose. This is urban anger which is now getting reflected against the political class. This anger is about many more things; there is anger about unemployment, about new cars, about the capacity to grow in life, etc. All that has got clubbed together and people say that politicians have created havoc in the system. There is another thing happening in society which possibly we are not talking about today. This, I have analysed and will illustrate with an example. I had gone for a lecture to the National Police Academy (Hyderabad); some figures for 2001 and 2011 prompt me to make this remark. In 2001 the number of people who were killed in terrorist attacks or by terror actions in this country, including civilians, paramilitary forces, army and the terrorists, was around 3,500-4,000. The number of people in 2001 who were killed in Naxalite violence was around 400. In 2011, the number of people who were killed in Naxal violence was around 1000, and the number of people killed in terrorist activities was around 400. The writing is absolutely clear on the wall. Today, out of 642 districts in this country, almost 225 districts are virtually not being controlled (by the 10 www.orfonline.org
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Campaign Finance Reforms in India: Issues and Challenges

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