Saturday, June 29, 2013

Munde's Rs.9 crores sets the cat amongst India's white pigeons


In one of those positive-firing-in-my-neurons moments Mr.Gopinath Munde, a senior BJP leader, accepted from a public podium that he spent more than Rs.9 crores in his parliamentary elections, much above the statutory mandated Election Commission limit of Rs.40 lacs. Personally I feel that it must have one of those sanctimonous "Oh, what the heck, why this hyprocrisy" feeling for Mr.Munde when he startled everyone - most of all his opponents (read the Congress) by such a frank admission. His political rivals are ecstatic that he has chosen to say something they would never have (at least not from a public platform)!

Perhaps the gravity of his mistake must have been apparent to him immediately after saying it, as in this nation we reward hyprocrisy and tartar-twisted-two-timing politicians who lie incessantly far more than simple, frank, honest ones. 

(media reports initially suggested 9 crores and 40 lacs as the amounts under debate, which was later rectified to 8 crores and 25 lacs respectively. Snippets from the People's Representation Act 1950 can be seen here)

Some big questions pop up, in the wake of this rather unexpected declaration from Mr Munde.
  • Does anyone - ANYONE - believe the spending amounts mentioned in the affidavits filed to the EC, by all winning (and runner-up) candidates, in the parliamentary elections, which declare an expense of around Rs 40 lacs?
  • Does even the Election Commission of India really believe any of those documents, so sanctimoniously filed with it, claiming they never breached its hallowed limit of Rs.40 lacs in the whole election?   (I suspect they must be having a long laugh reading those!)
  • Do we not know how difficult it is for a politician to really win an election in a typical parliamentary constituency in India? Each one is so big (the constituency, that is), with so many far-flung villages and hamlets, that accessing and influencing them all is impossible in a measly Rs.40 lacs? Even a small meeting of a thousand people will need a lac rupees or more to be well-managed.
  • Are we, and the EC, not aware of the unstoppable spikes of inflation that have jacked up the rates for tea, coffee, drinking water (bottled), printing, posters, pamphlets, fuel, jeep rentals, loudspeakers, manpower et al, in the past 20 years at a stretch?
Personally I feel that anyone who has set up an enterprise in India, and is running it, knows it is impossible to run a full-fledged election campaign and spend less than Rs.40 lacs. This is totally ludicrous, at least to me. (You may disagree)

So why the hypocrisy? What is the real problem? Can it not be solved?




Well, the problem is three-fold.
  1. Who will bell the cat? No politician or party will want to earn the public's attention and ire by honestly standing up and claiming it is an impossible limit (this 40 lacs one). The media will tear him/her/it to shreds claiming them to be real crooks.
  2. Why should the EC worry? They apparently have no reason to worry, as the paper work is perfect, and everything seemingly is under control.
  3. Why should the Parties and Candidates, and the Corporates that fund them, worry? Everyone knows that most of the funding in elections is under the table, with hundreds of crores flowing like water. None of it is reported. No bills or receipts are generated, no accounts maintained, no records kept, nothing! So why bother.

Actually, the inertia of status-quo is so frighteningly strong that any right-thinking politician (howsoever patriotic they may be) will not bother righting it. He/she anyway has a lot of other things to bother about - getting a ticket, organising the entire campaign, finding the public's sweet spot (laptops, anyone?), thinking about the nation, and then rewarding the lackeys once he/she wins.

When we got independence and blindly adopted the parliamentary election format from Britain, perhaps we forgot that Britain is a small island, with small-sized constituencies, and India is entirely different. This oversight may well earn the award for modern mankind's biggest constitutional mistake.

This lack of any formal state-funding of elections mechanism is destroying our democracy more than any corrupt politician is.
    No doubt, Kejriwal and Anna and Aam Aadmi Party are livid. They are saying what everyone knows, but does not speak about. They find it horrible that India should meekly watch the system of 'parliamentary democracy' in this great 'sovereign socialist secular' nation get hijacked so easily. So Kejriwal has started his transparent funding system where each donor is listed on his/their website, and donations can be made online (a really good start).

    But then, the question remains: who will bell the cat? 

    The parties? The leaders? The corporates? The aam aadmi? You? Me?

    Meanwhile, let us all lynch Mr.Munde for such a serious gaffe!


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    13 comments:

    siyaram vishwakarma said...

    nice one..here also needs transparency just like AAP has implemented. in one of the four points starting with > Are we, and the EC ....
    d is missing in the word louspeakers

    Unknown said...

    It was a really surprise act which done by Mr.Gopinath Munde,a senior BJP leader, accepted that he spent more than Rs.9 crores in his parliamentary election.I think he did a good job because he honestly said that he spent Rs.9 crores in his parliamentary election, but EC announced that it will provide only Rs.25 lacs for election. It is just like a joke because Rs. 25 lacs not enough money to spend in election, you can not manage every expenses in just Rs.25 lacs. In India there are good management system is not available in election system and politician are spending a huge amount of money in election, so they are stealing money from government scheme like MNREGA,JNNURM etc. So they are becoming currupted and won't to elect again, so complite cycle will repeat for next election. Parmeshwar Patidar

    Unknown said...

    It was a really surprise act which done by Mr.Gopinath Munde,a senior BJP leader, accepted that he spent more than Rs.9 crores in his parliamentary election.I think he did a good job because he honestly said that he spent Rs.9 crores in his parliamentary election, but EC announced that it will provide only Rs.25 lacs for election. It is just like a joke because Rs. 25 lacs not enough money to spend in election, you can not manage every expenses in just Rs.25 lacs. In India there are good management system is not available in election system and politician are spending a huge amount of money in election, so they are stealing money from government scheme like MNREGA,JNNURM etc. So they are becoming currupted and won't to elect again, so complite cycle will repeat for next election. Parmeshwar Patidar

    Unknown said...

    The contravened act done by Mr Munde’s shows the unscrupulous character of our politician and leaders which has set many questions against the common people that if they can dupe the government or EC by doing such act which was unknown till the date of Mr Munde’s bombastic speech from 2009 its mean there must be many similar cases which are still unknown to us….This shows our system strongly needs a reform..
    One more angle to this case is that after the speech of Mr Munde’s the government instead of questioning to the EC about audit and information of the issue they simply asked the EC to take the cognizant of the issues this shows the sluggish nature of our system….This shows us now the time has come to take a stand and ask for the transparency which should have been already present in the system…

    Unknown said...

    nice one.... here understand that the political leader how invested money above its limit with his power and misusing his leadership.And it is just like AAP.

    Unknown said...

    The contravened act done by Mr Munde’s shows the unscrupulous character of our politician and leaders which has set many questions against the common people that if they can dupe the government or EC by doing such act which was unknown till the date of Mr Munde’s bombastic speech from 2009 its mean there must be many similar cases which are still unknown to us….This shows our system strongly needs a reform..
    One more angle to this case is that after the speech of Mr Munde’s the government instead of questioning to the EC about audit and information of the issue they simply asked the EC to take the cognizant of the issues this shows the sluggish nature of our system….This shows us now the time has come to take a stand and ask for the transparency which should have been already present in the system…

    Reema Jain said...

    Due to the controversy here Mr. Munde's has proven himself an iconoclastic as well as an orthodox person too. It is a dilemma state for him as his situation can say is more pathetic then any thing else. May be he plans new strategies to come out of it.It will be interesting to know what will happen now
    Reema Jain

    Thank you
    Mr. Sandeep Manudhane

    Anonymous said...

    Its great that Mr.Munde accepted that he spent 9 crores in parliamentry election where around 40 lacs are hte limit so the question is that what was EC doing during the poll? From where he got 9 crores for poll expenses?

    soma chourasia

    Anonymous said...

    this is a very funny thing done by Mr Munde . He used Rs 9crore For elelctions which far much than that given by EC (40 lack RS).The title is also Fabulous
    __Parth Saraf

    Unknown said...

    He tells the truth bravely. but he should tell the public how the money he earned. after that election commission of India served show cause notice to senior BJP leader Mr. Gopinath Munde, asking why he should not mention true account for his expenditure on 2009 LOKSABHA election. I think this was the legal action by election commission of India. I think the big mistake is when we got independence and former politicians and the great leader's of India adopted constitution from Britain. sir when I read your blog what I realized those politicians ho done this they totally forget politics is not a game it is earnest business.

    Sudhanshu tiwari

    Abhisheel Jaiswal said...

    Well you are not satisfied with Mr.Munde I am very happy with him because first time ever in Indian history I have seen a Political leader telling the truth and accepting it with full courage that he has committed such type of mistake or violated any norm even if you will tell me that no so many leaders are there who speaks the truth so I am sorry i could not find him whoever it may be either Kejriwal,Vajpayee or Vallabh Bhai Patel all falls under same categaree and talking about Mr.Munde 's fact he is the first leader who is supported by the opposition too instead of being get criticized and this have given a strong message to public that we all are having same mentallity although we play the drama of being having different ''vichaardhara'' and public also understands that yes that Mr.Munde is saying rght that their is this much amount of expense is their because if their is only Rs.40 lacs expenditure India will be having more than lacs of contestant in the election but the common man knows that their a sum of crore rupee expenditure in the election

    Unknown said...

    Although the BJP's senior leader Mr.Gopinath Munde bravely accepted the truth that he had spent Rs 9 crore for the parliamentary elections, but according to the Election Commision the rule has been broken down... In my opinion 25 lakhs is enoungh for elections or I should say more than enough.I think the amount of money he had used was too much, if he had used the same amount of money for a Social work (without any corruption) it would have definetly helped in the elections.

    EC had asked Mr. Munde "Why he should not mention true account for his expenditure on 2009 LOKSABHA election'? It is an legal action by the EC.

    But here another question arises that What was the EC doing during the poll? It shows the slugish nature of our system.

    One reason for the slugish nature of our system might be that when we got Independence, our former leader's also referred to the constitution of 'Britian'.But they did'nt realise that as compared to India - Britian was small in both population and area.

    Now we need to get transparency in our system. I think the AAP is trying bring it. In my opinion we should support AAP.

    Unknown said...

    Although the BJP's senior leader Mr.Gopinath Munde bravely accepted the truth that he had spent Rs 9 crore for the parliamentary elections, but according to the Election Commision the rule has been broken down... In my opinion 25 lakhs is enoungh for elections or I should say more than enough.I think the amount of money he had used was too much, if he had used the same amount of money for a Social work (without any corruption) it would have definetly helped in the elections.

    EC had asked Mr. Munde "Why he should not mention true account for his expenditure on 2009 LOKSABHA election'? It is an legal action by the EC.

    But here another question arises that What was the EC doing during the poll? It shows the slugish nature of our system.

    One reason for the slugish nature of our system might be that when we got Independence, our former leader's also referred to the constitution of 'Britian'.But they did'nt realise that as compared to India - Britian was small in both population and area.

    Now we need to get transparency in our system. I think the AAP is trying bring it. In my opinion we should support AAP.