Campaign Finance Reforms in India: Issues and Challenges

ORF Seminar Series
Mr. Mohan Guruswamy, Distinguished Fellow, ORF: I am absolutely
delighted to hear two politicians speak this language today. For the first time in
my long innings, I have heard this kind of dispassionate talk. Rudy raised a very
significant point on the role of parliamentarians. There is no reference to
political parties in the Indian Constitution, yet, when you talk about campaignfinancing,
you go and give money to a group or an agency which is in a limbo.
For a cooperative society you have rules of functioning, for a gurudwara there
are rules, but there are no rules for political parties.
So, I think you have to legislate for that because if the State is going to fund a
political party, which I think is a good idea, then that political party must
conform to certain norms and behaviour. Most parties have this 'High
Command decides' culture, which is why you are increasingly seeing children,
nephews, grandchildren, all becoming political heirs and successors. I don't
know if political parties can conduct inner-party elections anymore, or whether
the Election Commission should conduct these elections for them. After all,
you have a Registrar conducting elections for cooperative societies. So, these are
much larger issues. Just restricting it to campaign financing means you want
sarkari paisa to do exactly what you are doing now.
Dr. Sridharan: The notion that separating Executive power from legislative
power will actually help you insulate from corruption is misplaced. The
empirical evidence in the US does not support it. There are a number of
Senators who take money, whose financing has been called into question; one
has had to resign, or he has been sacked. You can, through the legislative
process, carry out many Executive functions like allocation of money, do
favours, withhold favours, do anything that currently elected representatives are
doing while holding Executive positions. So, that is not the solution. In the
recent Assembly elections in Kerala, the Congress party could not deploy
helicopters for ferrying their Central leaders for campaigning because there was
a huge uproar from the people, the political opponents and the media; they had
to abandon the idea. So, there is a certain consciousness of the polity which
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