Bangaru Laxman and Dilip Singh Judeo hold a very valuable lesson for our political class: the craft of graft is not be practised by greenhorns. These novices did not know that naked moolah is poison and should never be touched by one’s hands. But whereas the acceptance of bribes in any form carries a certain amount of risk and an association of guilt, our political masters have also created several channels for the flow of public money to them under the guise of public service, or acceptance of donations for ‘legitimised’ political activity.Indian elections have become a ruinously expensive affair and much of the political corruption is centred around the raising of funds to finance these extravaganzas. Earlier there existed a wholesome provision under Section 77(1) of the Representation of People’s Act which not only prescribed an upper limit to the expenditure incurred by a candidate, but this ceiling also included all the money spent by his party in his constituency. But in 1974 an explanation was inserted to the effect that any expenditure incurred by a political party or anybody else in a particular constituency shall not be deemed as expenditure incurred by the candidate. This provision opened the floodgates of political corruption and suddenly made elections an extremely expensive affair.Several attempts have been made by various agencies to get this provision annulled, but no political party wants to let go such a ‘helpful’ ploy. In fact in 1994 the Supreme Court observed, “As the law stands today in India anybody including a smuggler, criminal or any other anti-social element may spend any amount over the election of any candidate in whom such a person is interested, for which no account is to be maintained or to be furnished.” It is no wonder that according to the Election Commission’s estimate, nearly 700 of our MPs and MLAs have criminal records!Every state allots prime land to its MLAs and MPs at highly subsidised rates for construction of houses, and loans for house construction at nominal interest are also advanced. This is irrespective of the fact that all of them are also provided with residential accommodation during their tenure as legislators. Whereas it is well known how inconvenient officers are transferred under pressure from local legislators, several state governments have now legitimised this activity by officially authorising their MLAs and MPs to ask for a certain number of transfers per year. So no district official can hope to continue in his post even for a year if he gets on the wrong side of any MLA in his district.Take the case of ‘local area development fund’ given to every MP and MLA. All MPs gets Rs 2 crore per year for undertaking development works in their constituencies. Though the amount of development fund given to an MP is spent only in the assembly segment comprising his parliamentary constituency, yet this is no consolation to an MLA who wants, and has, a separate allocation of his own. On the face of it there is nothing objectionable about this. After all an MP or MLA best understands the needs of his constituents, and the funds are utilised for development works only. But there are at least three factors which must be considered.One, whereas the works are selected by the concerned MP or MLA, and contracts given according to prescribed procedures, in actual practice the local officials prefer to avoid any confrontation with their legislators. So the work is awarded to the MP/MLA’s nominee. Secondly, under the Five Year Plans the Planning Commission allocates huge amounts to the state governments for a variety of development works. And to allocate large amounts over and above the Plan funds leads to distortion of the planning process. Thirdly, whereas an MLA’s concerns and sympathies are confined to his state, an MP is supposed to have an all-India perspective. But the local area development fund breeds a localised and parochial outlook. The one exception known to me is that of Arun Shourie who donated the entire accumulated amount of his fund for establishing a centre for research in biotechnology in UP.If you aggregate the total cost of all the above largesse extended to our lawmakers, it does not add up to a very staggering amount. But it carries a very damaging message. Here are instances (and there are many more) where the state itself goes out of the way to devise clumsy ploys to legitimise largesse to its legislators.
