The election festival

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Ajay N Jha

ENARADA, NEW DELHI

By AJAY N JHA

Come elections in our country and you would see politicians of all ilk having made issues like development and progress as their copyright and monopoly.  These issues reverberate in each and every meeting of all politicians as if they have been given license by the divine forces to change the fate of their electorate with just a magic wand.

Every party in the poll fray promises a bounty like no other. Every party builds roads, building, bridges and factories and even those heavy-on tongue words are chanted with alarming regularity. Every party wants to root out “corruption” and throw that in the Arabian Sea, so what if it comes with a little help from Ministers with criminal cases pending against them. Every party wants to eradicate “poverty” as if this “wretched thing” as something like some breed of mosquito unmindful of the fact that this is a country where more than 267 persons die of mosquito-bred diseases almost every day.

Come elections and every party comes out with various kinds of slogans and jibes against its rivals most of which are banal and boorish. Every political party’s media management wing comes out with a slew of slanders and paid-news to expose and maim its rivals. There are scandals galore, sleaze snorkels and advertisement blitzkrieg   pasted on the walls and in local channels almost overnight.

No wonder then that Indian politicians are expected to spend around $5 billion on campaigning for elections next month — a sum second only to the most expensive US presidential campaign of all time — in a splurge that could give India’s floundering economy a temporary boost.

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India’s campaign spend, which can include cash stuffed in envelopes as well as multi-million-dollar ad campaigns, has been estimated at Rs 30000 crore .That is triple the expenditure the centre said was spent on electioneering in the last national poll in 2009 — partly a reflection of a high-octane campaign by pro-business opposition candidate for prime minister, Narendra Modi, who started nationwide rallies and advertising last year.

According to a recent report, the campaign spending for this election could give a boost to the economy, which has been heading for its longest slump since the 1980s. Economists have forecast a second year of growth below 5 percent in the financial year ending this month.

India’s projected campaign spending is only rivalled by the $7 billion ( about Rs 42,000 crore ) spent by candidates, parties and support groups in the 2012 US presidential race, the world’s most expensive, according to data provided by the US election commission.

While the Election Commission of India has been issuing circulars and making guideline about the spending slab by a Lok Sabha candidate yet the fact remains that it would be extremely difficult to make a correct guess on the entire spending by all contestants. Their past record clearly indicates that the amount of money spent by one candidate can vary in between Rs 15 to 20 crores up to Rs 80 to even Rs 90 crores.

Spending on previous Indian elections have benefited a wide range of businesses, from media groups and advertisers that rake in campaign-ad revenues to consumer-based firms that capitalise indirectly on the overall jump in spending, such as motor-bike manufacturers and brewers like United Spirits.

India’s advertising industry expects to see an $800 million injection during the election season, according to an outlook by the India’s largest local agency, Madison Media. While  the BJP has kept its media budget to the tune of Rs 500 crores and the Congress party up to Rs 400 cores , the actual spending could be double than this.

Election time is also an opportunity to utilize a huge amount of black money as the election Commission  allows candidates to spend Rs 70 lakh  on campaigns for a parliament seat but the real cost of winning is about 10 times that, thanks to spending on rallies, fuel and media campaigns that often include payments for coverage.

Indian politicians regularly bribe voters with cash payouts or alcohol to secure their support. Recent state elections have seen innovations such as getting money to voters via mobile phone credit and envelopes of cash delivered in morning papers.

In the last three years, election authorities seized from politicians a total of about $32.65 million in the form of concealed cash, some if it stashed in helicopters, milk trucks and even funeral vans.

The Southern States in particular have been using innovative techniques of enticing and influencing the voters through “ Amma brand Sarees and Anna brand shirts and T shirts” to the voters, a Rs 1000 note  attached along with the morning newspapers and so on. That was also echoed by chief election commissioner VS Sampath   who admitted that he was worried about “money power” – heavy spending and the use of illegal funds to influence the outcome.

Perhaps, it is for the first time that the BJP started fund raising campaign in the name of its PM candidate Mr Narendra Modi and that was followed by AAM ADMI Party as well. BJP, got off to an early start in campaigning, pushing into the south where the BJP is weak and has avoided spending money in the past. Some of Modi’s fundraising is led by a seven-member team, including Deepak Kanth, a former investment banker previously with Citibank in London. This team has organized an online fund-raising drive in India and is also targeting donations from wealthy Indians living in Hong Kong and Singapore. This team has only raised $4 million, a party source said, but shows how far Modi is casting his net for campaign funds.

In contrast, AAP has been more successful in its “ fund raising campaign” and also got into trouble for not able to reveal its actual source of funding as it was alleged that it had been getting monetary support from overseas and the see-saw battle between the Congress party and AAP is still raging on.

More than that has been the paid-news syndrome which has hit Indian media as never before.  Moreover, the social media has emerged as the new tool which is being used and abused by most of the political parties in the name of campaign. The print media campaign pitch has still been shrill with a plethora of advertisements issued almost every day in both national and vernacular newspapers.

However, it is the electronic media which has been taking the cake and most of the political parties have been smartly cultivating this tool as the most effective medium of campaign which has reach right up to the bedroom. With more than 87 News channels blaring all kinds of paid and unpaid news stories, the war for ballot has gone to an unexpected and even bizarre level. As a commentator wrote “Television News, these days has increased the task of traditional writers by taking reporting to even ridiculous level by turning trivia into titanic and even pronouncing their verdict on news stories of their  occurrence. So, at the prime time every day, the respective editors of various news channels  don the robe of Judges, assembly a jury of those with opinions rather than coloured and proceed to drill and grill the newsmaker of the day”.

The transformation of the news television into entertaining information over relevance and objectivity was completed when prime time bulletins have become more like mini-fact finding commissions. Gone are the days when the Editor of a news Channel withheld a story for the lack of convincing sound bytes. New techniques like graphic plates with source based information have not only lowered the threshold of permissibility but also become a tool of blackmail and extortion by a few channels.

A survey of last six months clearly shows that Television has become such a powerful tool that it can create a havoc both ways.  News has become more like a potato which can be peeled, fried, chopped, cooked and baked in at least 3 hundred ways. All that most of our revered news channels have been doing is to pull a quote out of contest, interpret reluctance to talk as an obvious admission of guilt or the deliberate choice of panelists whose main qualifications to speak non-stop nonsense on any issue under debate are often that they are vocal, unabashed about giving their vocal chords a free run and create the hysteria.

The latest trend that has manifested in a few celebrity Anchors and newscasters is their high pedestal of morality and their  role as the self- appointed ombudsman of the people’s faith and trust and that is why every question  prefixes with “The nation wants to know” and so on… Almost every evening, the prime time slot witnesses such muckraking and mudslinging by those panelists whose only qualification seems to be verbose, heated tempers and the ability to take their sound decibels to unprecedented heights.

Moreover, this hysteria and hunger for popularity and viewers loyalty has taken media men and women into an altogether new dimension. They have already started into the process of cannibalization and there no qualm or bar on exposing their own colleagues with their pants down on camera or with their off air- quips and quotes.

But Indian voters are a huge canvas of blotting paper which suck and absorb all kinds of drama and electoral antics of both politicians as well as some of their own folks and the “festival  and fiesta of elections” goes  as usual.

(Posted on March 11, 2014 @ 10am)

(Ajay N Jha is a veteran journalist from both Print and Electronic media.  He is Advisor to Prasar Bharti. The views expressed are his personal. His email id is Ajay N Jha <ajayjha30@gmail.com> )

The views expressed on the website are those of the Columnists/ Authors/Journalists / Correspondents and do not necessarily reflect the views of ENARADA.

1 COMMENT

  1. LEGALIZE MONEY LAUNDERING ?

    In Satyamevajayate TV episode ( 23 March 2014 ) , Amir Khan had one expert present the following fact :
    Market value of ALL the fossil fuels + ALL the minerals , lying under Indian soil is ,

    A = Market Value = Rs 5 * Thousand * Lakh * Crores

    If we were to extract all of these in the next 100 years , then

    B = Annual Output = Rs 5 * Ten * Lakh * Crores
    ( on dividing ” Thousand ” by ” Hundred ” )

    But how much additional investment would we need to get such an output ?

    Let us assume that we need an additional investment of ” Rs TEN ” to raise an additional output of ” Rs ONE ”

    That is an ICOR of 10 ( ” Incremental Capital Output Ratio ” , which is now close to 6 in our country )

    So , let us divide B by 10 , to get ,

    C = Additional Investment = Rs 5 * Lakh * Crores

    Bingo !

    If we are to believe sundry Economists ( Baba Ramdev / Narendra Modi etc included ) , then that is exactly ,

    D = Black Money = Rs 5 * Lakh * Crores

    ( Amount locked up / stashed away by Indians in Swiss + local banks + gold + land etc , by way of ” Unproductive Assets ” )

    Now , all that we need to realize our underground resources is a ” Magic Wand ” that would convert this Black Money into White Money !

    Turn our ” Unproductive Assets ” into ” Productive Assets ” (Rs 5 Lakh Crores )

    And enable people to do so legally !

    Here is my oft-repeated suggestion ,

    ” Inverse ” the Personal Tax slabs as follows :

    > Up to Rs 2 lakhs………………… NIL
    > 2.1 – 5.0 lakhs…………………. 10 %
    > 5.1 – 10 lakhs………………….. 8 %
    > 10.1 – 20 lakhs…………………. 6 %
    > 20.1 – 50 lakhs………………… 5 %
    > 50.1 – 100 lakhs………………… 3 %
    > Above 100 lakhs…………………. 1 %

    What is likely to happen with such ” INVERSE TAXATION ” regime ?

    Following few things :

    > Total personal tax payer base will go up dramatically from current 4
    crores tax-payers

    > with this ” INVERSE TAX REGIME ” , there will be no incentive to evade
    taxes and to generate ” BLACK MONEY ”

    There will be no resistance to accept ALL payments by cheque / electronic
    clearance

    The more you disclose as your income , the less you pay by way of taxes

    > For a change , we will learn to reward honesty / efficiency / productivity !
    No need to bribe those Income Tax officers !

    > Suddenly , lakhs of crores of BLACK MONEY will become WHITE MONEY

    > There will be a huge surge in bank deposits ( – even with , the inevitable
    lower interest rates )

    > Banks will be awash with funds to finance businesses / infrastructure
    projects etc , encouraging entrepreneurs / self-employed to set up new
    businesses ( at 2 % interest rates of loans ) and generate millions of jobs

    Amir Khan said ,

    ” If we divide Rs 5 * Thousand * Lakh * Crores , by 1200 million Indian population , then each one of us , is the proud owner of Rs 40 lakhs ! ”

    My suggested Magic Wand would eliminate poverty – something which Congress Governments have been trying to do for the past 60 years !

    * hemen parekh ( 24 March 2014 / Mumbai )

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