Fighting elections anywhere in a democracy is a costly affair. Be it USA,UK, France or India. Either the candidate should have very deep pockets to finance the expenses on his own or the party should be able to mobilise funds from the people to get sufficient resources to fund its candidates in any election. It is a known fact that in USA the presidential candidate is supported by millionaires and their corporate companies. Unless the candidate is able to mobilise a size-able war-chest he/she may not be able to fund and fight the election. The numerous allegations about some of the candidates in the recent past are an indicator as to the level of money infused into the system to fight the election by such candidates and the means of acquiring such huge finances for that purpose.
In India, there are 542 parliament seats and the country spread into 30+ states and UT for which the elections are held almost every year though the life of an elected house is 5 years. Therefore, any party that is fighting the election at national level in the parliament elections, local state level assembly elections etc., should have a very huge balance in their war-chest to spend on the organizational and election expenditure.
Some of the regional parties resort to corruption from a very low level and demand that the elected representatives donate a certain sum every month to the party coffers. If an elected member has to donate say about 5 crore a month to the party war-chest, imaging what would be the amount to be collected from various levels that would reach the elected representative to part with the amount to the party. This makes the life of a common man very difficult as he has to part with a size-able sum to get his work done. This money gets accumulated and given to the next higher up after deducting the one's share at the lowest level. This gets escalated until it reaches the elected representative/ minister and finally the party coffers. Therefore, in this way the entire system is thriving on corruption and bribes. The common man finds this to be a very difficult proposition to carry on his living. Most of the parties in the country had been following this practice to amass wealth beyond imagination for its war-chest to fight the elections and in the process the elected representatives and the ministers became extremely rich. This was replicated at national level and the wealth amassed by a few erstwhile national level parties is unimaginable. Even BJP was not an exception to this when one of the late leaders was instrumental in getting funds for his party.
Now, winding back to 2001-02 to the state of Gujarat. A total novice to the administration and politics except that he was a regular in the BJP office and a swayamsevak became the first time MLA and CM to boot. He in his wisdom found that the corruption hits the common man very hard and had also experienced it before becoming the CM. Therefore, he started reforming the administration and used the nascent IT tools available then for following up many ideas that were getting translated into action to eradicate the problem for the public. The ease of doing business in the state increased manifold as compared to other states and the industries started trotting to that state. In the next ten years,he made the state a place where the common man will be able to live without any corruption in his dealings with the government departments. How this translated to getting funds for the party. The industry was welcome and was told that the climate for industry is getting better and all the road blocks are being removed so the industry now owes it to the party and donations are welcome from corporate to the party. The industry-party handshake became very stronger. Similar strategy was put in place by another CM in a south Indian state where also he relaxed the rules making it easy for doing business and all the reforms put in place in the state were followed up meticulously thereby the common man found that he could do business with the government without greasing any palm in the process. This was a true and remarkable achievement in a country known for its sinking into deeper and deeper into well of corruption year after year. The parties to which these two CMs belonged also benefited because of the excellent work done by these two and the war-chest was increasing year after year with constant flow of funds.
In 2014 the BJP came to power on the plank of corruption free governance and got a landslide majority to form the government in its steam and party strength. Despite that the party continued the alliance post election and formed the NDA-2 government. As with his Gujarat legislature entry, here also Modi entered the parliament for the first time and that too as the PM but with about 10+ years of administrative experience in his native state. As with his experiment in his avatar of state CM, here also he initiated many administrative reforms and tightened the grip on officials. Many actions were initiated to clear the cobweb of administrative delays in ease of doing business. One of the most practical things to have happened is the one nation one tax regime of introduction of GST. Another one that the government has to embark upon is the rationalisation of the individual taxation in the country and provide the much needed respite to the common man from ever increasing cost of living. The RERA (Real Estate Act) is another milestone to regulate the real estate sector which had been the cash cow to many of the political parties and many departments and officials involved with real estate. Needless to recount the many violations in planning and execution for which the administrative machinery turning a blind eye.
The main opposition party though seem totally obliterated, its financial muscle is still intact. There was every possibility of this party giving a tough fight to the BJP in the next elections to the parliament and also in the state elections. One way of making the party bleed was to make the cash available with the party useless. Hence the DeMon excercise which made a bulk of the notes in circulation (more than 80%) not legal tender. Another the Benami Act which is finding the proxy holders of the money generated illegally or held at the behest of others either in cash/ gold/ real estate. With these two master strokes, the financial position of the main opposition party had been crippled. No wonder you see/ read in media everyday that the leaders from that party are finding one or the other wrong with the present administration. The tightening of the screws on the foreign contribution to the NGO and the strict follow up with the NGO for the source and use of funds for the stated objectives of the NGO is another one drawing flak. These actions of the present administration has sent a signal to the common man that the PM and his team mean business to provide a corrupt free government.
Once the corruption is removed from the administrative machinery and the elected members do not have to source funds for fighting elections, the common man will be a lot relieved one than what he was in the earlier model. This model may have its own flaws but in the long run the common man's position will improve a lot.
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