Mornings at home start with any piece of news related to politics. News channels have headlines filled with the recent activities of the political parties whereas newspapers have pages dedicated to the biggest ongoing festival in the country. A few of those actually attract the viewers and readers. One such article attracted me too. Being fair and transparent published in The Hindu on 22nd April 2019 written by 16th CEC and author of Every Vote Counts Mr.Navin B Chawla.
Election in India is like the marriage of a daughter whose father has spent all his life savings to impress the long distant relatives whom they are sure to never meet again. The only difference is the return in election is huge, but as for the marriage the father still gets to hear “khana acha nahi tha”(food wasn’t good).
India has limits on election spending: ₹70 lakh per Lok Sabha candidate and ₹28 lakh per assembly candidate but reports say that the amount allotted to candidates is merely 1/30 or 1/50 of the spent amount. This is witticism because the seizure in the first two phases itself has crossed the seizure of all the nine phases of 2014 general elections( ₹3119.17 till 22 April 2019).
Some of the headlines are:
- ₹79.26 crore worth seizures.
- Tamil Nadu registers the highest- ₹395 crores.
- Karnataka ranks second in seizure of liquor.
- 50000 kg drugs seized by the second round of polls.
- Phase 2 polling called off in Vellore.
These headlines are enough to understand that elections in India are both expensive and a murky affair. Money matters in our elections. Cash handouts, alcohol distribution and rallies are becoming more common and extravagant. But why? Why do elections in India need to be so expensive? How come it is so easy to woo voters with money and alcohol? An intelligent answer would be most of them belong from not so economically sound backgrounds. This answer again brings a question with itself- for a country where ₹67 crore is seized daily, how come we have poor people whose votes can easily be bought?
The 2019 general elections is undoubtedly the most expensive one till now, but this shouldn’t only be discussed through papers and news channels debates. Maybe the EC can set up institutions before elections so that the poor and the illiterate could be enlightened on how every vote is priceless, vigilance squads must be more tightened, every person must have a way to report if he or she finds any kind of money laundering or any other acts – one such mobile application is c-vigil. Remember ‘Every Vote Counts’ not just in pages of the book but also in real life. We are the ones to be deciding our future. We must not let your future be bought so easily.
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