Cash, booze and vote

Published May 12, 2014

VOTE buying is rampant in India as candidates everywhere dole out cash and offer liquor to poor voters to ensure their support. Election Commission of India is not only conscious of this illegal practice aimed at mutilating the electoral process, it is vigilant as well. The two play a dangerous cat and mouse game all through the election season. But who wins at the end of the day?

The commission’s flying squads had seized during the current campaign over Rs283 crore in cash and Rs2.13 crore litres of liquor till May 5. The squads consist of a magistrate, five policemen and a videographer and three of them are appointed in each district. Besides this, the commission has a number of other instruments in place to check the practice, like a 24/7 complaint centre.

Almost half of the seizures took place in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Ravikanth Reddy, a journalist working in the state’s capital, Hyderabad, believes that the political class in India in general has grown extremely rich over the past decade as the country liberalised its economy and consequently the lust for power has multiplied many folds. The corrupt practice of buying votes is common to all developing South Asian countries.

“The average per voter ‘price’ has increased at least four folds since 2004 elections. More importantly, the voters now not only expect cash from candidates, they in fact demand it in no uncertain terms,” says Ravikanth who has covered the region for many years.

“In case of Andhra, another important reason is that the political stakes of each of the four major parties here are very high in the wake of its bifurcation. Everyone wishes to form the pioneering governments and take all the advantages that can be associated with it,” says Sudipto Mondal, a journalist based in Bangalore. Andhra Pradesh will separate into two new states of Telangana and Seemandhra on June 2.

Election Commission has placed strict bars on the movement of cash during the campaign period. Anybody carrying cash in excess of Rs50,000 has to prove identity and show documentation about the source. Interestingly, the restriction has an unintended victim - the gold buyers. As consumers of this second biggest importer of gold in the world hesitate carrying cash, Indian gold imports are expected to have fallen to 20 tons in April and May from 50 tons in March. Akshaya Tritia, the festival considered to be auspicious for buying gold and property in the Hindu calendar, fell on May 2 this year and is reported to have been lacklustre.

Election Commission also closely watches the bank accounts of candidates for any large transactions. “They don’t use the legal and formal sector channels for these transactions. Hawala system comes in handy and these people are really experts in moving money in concealed ways,” says Sudipto, adding, “this money anyway comes not from the candidates’ accounts but from their financiers’.”

While smaller amounts might be finding their way through the Hawala, the large-scale transactions chart their own routes. An India Today report published in March had estimated that Rs1,500 to Rs5,000 crore had been channeled back to India in past three months through stock markets and was destined to be spent during elections.

Sensex, the Indian stock market index breached 23k mark on Friday, gaining a record 700 points in a day, ostensibly in expectation of a Modi win that is likely to crash open the gate of Indian economy for the private sector.

“Money has a great thrust in itself and pushes its way forward to the voter by hook or by crook,” says an observer who wished not to be named. Candidates have been quite innovative in slipping currency notes to the voter. Former Election Commissioner S. Y. Quraishi has listed 40 ways in his recently published book ‘An Undocumented Wonder’ which the candidates are reported to be using for bribing voters. It includes ‘currency notes placed under plates or banana leaves during community feasts’ to ‘cash given to ladies who arrange an aarti ceremony for candidates’. Indian media has extensively reported this time that the candidates have made women’s Self Help Groups in villages as their conduits and have been clearing loans of microfinance borrowers as a way of bribing voters.

Election Commission has also been raiding and confiscating consignments of liquor all over India. Money and liquor go hand in hand in this game. Election laws declare the campaign periods as ‘dry days’, barring large-scale movement of liquor.

Indian Punjab that gravely suffers from the problem of drug addiction sees an upsurge in supply during elections. In this state links between the politicians and drug smugglers are a common knowledge and observers believe that a portion of drug money is used to fund campaigns. Days before the state went to polls on 30th April, election authorities seized consignments worth Rs732 crore that included 145 kg of heroine and over 16,000 kg of poppy husk.

Ravikanth Reddy believes that the cash and liquor hauls represent only the tip of the iceberg and estimates that the money changing hands during elections can be as high as ten times the seized amounts.

The campaign period is mostly consumed by ideological rhetoric focusing on religious and caste divides and development mantras. “That’s soft campaigning,” says an observer in Delhi, adding, “the hard campaign starts 48 hours before the polling when the public campaign has to end according to the election laws.”

“That’s exactly the time when tables turn as cash reaches the voters,” says Rakhi Jagga, a journalist working in Ludhiana. She has travelled in Punjab during the present elections and says that the per voter rate has been reported to be as high as Rs10,000 in the state.

“It can’t be denied that all of this takes place. But that does not mean you can buy election victory in India. The parties that have spent the most in the past have not always made it to the government,” says Shivam Vij, Delhi-based journalist who also writes in Pakistani papers, explaining further, “the clever voter taking the cash may not vote for his/her benefactor and for the candidates there is no way to ensure that.”

While it may not be possible to gauge the impact of this practice on voting patterns, all of the observers whom I have talked to are unanimous that the Election Commission’s check on movement of cash has an impact. “The candidates operate secretively under a constant gag. Imagine if they weren’t doing this, what would have been the situation,” says Shivam.

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