Electoral bonds expose the nexus between ruling parties, corporates

Let me start this on a not-so-happy note. Corruption in the Indian electoral system is transparent and that’s the sad truth, whether you take it or leave it. In many States, political parties and politicians try to lure voters with cash and in kind.

Voters, barring a minuscule percentage, don’t even bat an eyelid to accept whatever is offered to them by the contesting parties and candidates. Intriguingly, voters have become so mature these days that they accept inducements from all parties and not without any solid reasons. If they refuse something from a particular political party or leader, they will become a target. Obviously, they don’t want to become a direct target. Secondly, they know very well that funds being funnelled by a politician into the elections are not from his or her own pockets.

Of course, there are the odd occasions wherein politicians do spend from their own pockets. Voters have a strong opinion on this also and assert that the politicians are spending from their own pockets because they are confident that they will get returns multiple times. So, voters accept such direct inducements as well.

But then such direct inducements are not the only way to reach the voters. There are ‘official’ ways as well. Political parties are loading their manifestos with innumerable freebies and high-value welfare schemes these days. After coming to power, the governments that they lead are borrowing funds at high interest rates to implement the freebies they have promised. As a consequence, development is taking a back seat and States are saddled with huge debt burdens. This worrying trend, which is more widespread in south Indian States, is slowly spreading to other parts of the country as well. Unless this is curbed, India will not progress at a rapid pace. That’s for sure.

As if these are not enough, the data of electoral bonds released recently by the Election Commission of India (ECI) post a Supreme Court judgment, revealed a disturbing trend as it exposed a deep nexus between the ruling parties in India and corporates. The central government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought out the Electoral Bonds Scheme in 2017 with an aim to improve transparency in election funding. The government then promised that all the names of donors would be kept under wraps. But that promise of secrecy is broken now as the Supreme Court termed the scheme unconstitutional

It’s to be seen whether this development will go down well with the global investors, but the data showed that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre and ruling parties in the States received a major chunk of such donations.

BJP, which encashed bonds worth Rs. 6,060 crore since April 2019, topped the list followed by the Mamata Banerjee-led All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) which, to everyone’s surprise, stood second with Rs. 1,610 crore. TMC is in power only in West Bengal! Despite being in power in three States and the main opposition party at the national level, the Indian National Congress (INC), was third with Rs. 1,422 crore.

Other ruling parties also received handsome donations. So did some opposition parties. Corporates and corporate leaders are extremely shrewd. They try to donate to as many political parties as possible. This is evidenced by the data that had been made public.

Interestingly, the data also revealed that donations received by political parties are more or less proportionate to the power they hold. As BJP is in power in more than half of States, it received 50 per cent of the donations. This applies to other political parties as well.

It’s a known fact that corporates donate to political parties, essentially to be in their good books, particularly when they come to power.

But some private companies made shockingly high donations under this scheme. For instance, Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL) is the top donor for BJP with Rs. 584 crore. Lest one forgets, MEIL, a reputed infrastructure company, is executing several mega infrastructure projects of the central government, including the iconic Zoji-la Tunnel in Jammu and Kashmir.

Similar instances are there when it comes to regional parties as well. Kerala-based children’s garment maker Kitex donated Rs. 25 crore to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) just before the November 2023 Assembly elections in Telangana. The BRS government allocated 175 acre in Kakatiya Mega Textile Park in Warangal and more land near Hyderabad to Kitex. Of course, the land was allocated to Kitex much before it donated these funds and the Kerala-based group is obviously a genuine investor as it has lined up large investments in Telangana. But such donations obviously raise the questions if the donors have any transactions with the governments.

All such instances require a thorough and unbiased investigation to find out whether the governments have extended any undue benefits to donor companies, and, in the process, causing losses to the exchequer. There is no point in raking up the issue if there are no such losses.

But will the electoral bonds’ issue have any impact in the upcoming General Elections? Congress, being the principal opposition at the national level, is trying to corner the Modi government on this issue. But I don’t think this issue will have any bearing on the upcoming polls as all major political parties have cashed in on such donations.

Further, the beauty of Indian democracy is that voters don’t hesitate to defeat a political party, irrespective of the inducements it offers. Though corruption in the electoral system is an open secret, it doesn’t save a political party from ignominious defeat even if it empties its entire coffers into the hands of voters. We should be happy for that because Indian democracy is not in danger, at least not on that count.

Otherwise, we would not have seen the defeat of ruling parties in the country. For that, we should salute the Indian voters for their maturity. Let’s hope this tendency will continue into the future as well. But India will be in a different league and become a developed nation fast if corruption, both official and unofficial, is eradicated from the country’s electoral ecosystem. Will that happen? Let’s hope so.