Exorbitant elections

Now that the 2019 Lok Sabha election is over and soon a new government is to be formed, it may be time to review and rework on the norms of election spending which has unofficially exceeded even the combined 2016 US presidential and congressional elections cost estimated at $6.5 billion. No one really knows or may ever have any good idea about the sum ultimately spent by contesting political parties and candidates in the latest election. However, going by the extraordinary pomp and show connected with the campaign in the last 45 days of the seven-phase election, the total expenditure by the contesting parties and candidates may have surpassed Rs 50,000 crore.

Notably, the total government expenditure recorded for the first three general elections was a pittance, only around Rs 10 crore each. According to an Election Commission (EC) analysis, in 1952, the cost was 60 paise per elector. It went up to Rs 17 per elector in 2004. However, these figures are irrelevant now. The real value of Rupee has depreciated by over 1000 per cent in the last six decades. The election process has become far too complex and expensive. For instance,

in the 1952 general election, 1,849 candidates competed for 489 seats in Lok Sabha. Only around 17.40 crore people were eligible to vote, then. The total population was just about 36 crore.

The total government expenditure for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls was reported to be around Rs 3,870 crore, three times larger than the official spending for the 15th general election in 2009. In the 2019 election, 8,049 candidates fought for 543 Lok Sabha seats. The number of eligible voters was over 90 crores out of the country's total population of 130 crores. The number of security personnel engaged to ensure peace in the 2019 election might have been several lakhs. To give an example, EC had put up a blanket of security, involving some 80,000 personnel, in a single Lok Sabha constituency at Naxal-dominated Bastar where 741 polling booths out of the total 1,879 booths were marked as "hypersensitive" and 606 as "sensitive."

Paradoxically, there is no restriction on the government spending on election while an archaic 58-year-old law still controls the election expenditure by a candidate for Lok Sabha and state assembly elections. And, this has forced a massive unaccounted election spending by candidates as well as top regional and central political parties over the years. The law prescribes that the total election expenditure shall not exceed the maximum limit under Rule 90 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961. The rule allows a candidate to spend up to Rs 70 lakh, depending on the state they are contesting the Lok Sabha election. The expenditure limit only in bigger states such as Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Karnataka is Rs 70 lakh. The expenditure limit in smaller states and union territories like Arunachal, Goa, Sikkim, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra, and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep and Puducherry was kept at Rs 54 lakh. The same for the Assembly Elections is Rs 28 lakh in bigger states.

Roughly, under the law, the maximum authorised gross election spending by 8,049 Lok Sabha candidates in 2019 could be around Rs 5600 crore. This is simply ridiculous and, naturally, flouted at random. The average number of electorates in most parliamentary constituencies is around 15 lakh. That means a candidate can spend less than Rs 5 per voter during his entire campaign period. And, therefore, it is no wonder that during the five of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections this time, the EC reported countrywide large confiscation of cash, gold, liquor and drugs. The haul was valued at over Rs 5,000 crore. The figure might have increased significantly by May 19 end. The EC figures showed that cash amounting to Rs 142 crore was seized between April 11 and 25, the first 15 days of the general election. It is reported that with gold, silver, liquor, and cash together at the end of the second phase, Gujarat topped with seizures worth Rs 1,000 crore, followed by Punjab and Delhi. Experts say that the confiscated amount would be less than five per cent of what might have been actually spent by candidates and parties in the election, fought mostly with money and muscle powers.

According to a Centre for Media Studies (CMS) report, Bharatiya Janata Party spent over Rs 700 crore on account of publicity and campaigning alone in the 2014 election. Details submitted to the Election Commission reveal that BJP spent Rs 1,760 crore on fighting state elections in the last five years. Under the EC's poll expenditure mandate, 34 per cent of the total expenditure can be spent on vehicles, 23 per cent on campaigning equipment, 13 per cent on poll rallies, seven per cent on electronic and print media, four per cent on banners, hoardings and pamphlets and three per cent on field visits.

Such absurd stipulations in the present day context have made a mockery of a candidate's 'certified' and 'declared' election expenditure accounts. Almost everything about such election spending statements is false and fabricated. It would appear that a system of dishonesty has gone inbuilt in the electoral system. And, if the system itself is so corrupt and contaminated, can anyone expect its products to be pure and reliable? By the visible show of poll spending by candidates and parties, the latest Lok Sabha election exercise by candidates and political parties will go down as probably the most corrupt of the lot. With more and more billionaires contesting elections and the note-for-vote trend still going unabated, do public really believe in those political leaders who vow to wage battle against corruption? The outdated election spending rules need to be corrected urgently to be in tune with changing times and to make the system more transparent.

(The views expressed are strictly personal)