By Mr. M. V. Kamath in News India
Times,
February 4, 1994
(Originally published in The Independent)
Delivering the keynote address at a seminar on the urgency of electoral reforms organized by a body of well-meaning citizens of Bombay, Chief Election Commissioner TN Seshan described electioneering in the country as being tainted by 'ten great sins'. These he said were:
Seshan revealed that he had been personally told by a woman candidate for the Delhi assembly elections that she had spent Rs55 lakhs on election expenses even while stating in the mandatory government form tht she spent a mere Rs 483. Another candidate for a parliamentary seat had told Seshan that he had spent Rs 50 lakhs and one Telugu candidate reportedly confided to him that he had spent 8.5 crore rupees on his elections. The figures are entirely believable.
One may add that the citizen voter is familiar with every one of these sins, some citizens being more conscious than others. Padded electoral rolls are common in the northest where Muslims from neighboring Bangladesh have always been accommodated to get Congress leaders from Fakhruddin Ahmed to Hiteshwar Saikia elected. Rigging and booth-capturing with accompanying violence have a familiar ring, especially in the Hindi belt; criminals have got themselves elected with the full knowledge of the authorities who have not felt it necessary to pass legislation barring the candidature of such people.....
Corruption, indeed, is so in-built in our entire social structure that nothing surprises us any more. The JPC's report on the stock exchange scam was an unanimous one by 50 parliamentarians drawn from different parties. In the last two days in the Lok Sabha each one of the ministers about whom strictures were passed flouted the report openly. The report itself was unacceptable to the government which had appointed the committee in the first place. What sort of sham was the government practicing on the people? And yet not a dog has barked. It is to this level of parliamentary degenracy that we have come.
Or take the case of GV Ramakrishna, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), who has been eased out of his job... Practically every new paper has condemned this step in no uncertainterms. A shameless government maintained a stoic silence on the rising criticism of its action. Admittedly, GV ramakrishna is not indispensable, no one is. But here is a man who had dared to take on entrenched vested interests and for his troubles he has been removed from the scene....
It was SEBI under Ramakrishna which had called into question the infamous Rs 2 crore loan to Goldstar in which Rao's son had an interest. It was SEBI again under Ramakrishna that had worked out rules for the first time for foreign institutional investors. Indeed it was Ramakrishna, undaunted by the numerous hurdles that had been put in his way by the investors' enemies, who had sought to bring order out of studied chaos. A grateful government should have given him additional powers. What it has now done is to singularly bless the nexus between big money and politics. Nothing can be more shameful. But this teflon government carries on, unmindful of what is said about it.
The name of the game is power, power to loot, power to corrupt public life, power to stay in power. Is it any wonder that there is no stable government in Karnataka where opportunites for self-enrichment are unlimited? Bangrappa's proclivities to amass wealth become so unbearably evident that he had to be relieved of the chief ministership. One would have thought that Moily would be left in peace to run his government. But no, his own party men have been waiting to ambush him for their own selfish ends. If the public is to be looted, why shuold'nt every party member get his chance? Surely, every dog must have his day? Several dogs have already had theirs...
We are heading for lawlessness, sanctioned and sanctified by the government. We see it in the dismissal of Ramakrishna, in the putrid behavior of the Congress rebels in Karnataka, in the Congress support to the SP-BSP coalition government in UP which has made copying in examinations legal, in the cavaliar manner in which the JPC report has been sidelined, in the continuation of indicted ministers like B. Shankaranand in power, in the manner in which exministers both at the center and in Maharashtra refuse to pay their dues to the state...