2019 general elections could be world’s most expensive: expert
Washington: The upcoming general elections in India will be the most expensive in Indian history and perhaps one of the most expensive ever held in any democratic country, a US-based expert has said.
The Election Commission of India is soon expected to announce its schedule for the polls to be held to elect 543 members of the Lok Sabha.
“The combined US presidential and congressional elections in 2016 cost USD 6.5 billion. If the 2014 Lok Sabha elections cost an estimated USD 5 billion, there is little doubt the 2019 election will easily surpass that — making India’s elections the world’s most expensive,” Milan Vaishnav, senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank told PTI.
“The uncertainty associated with the coming election —polls suggest a narrowing gap between the BJP and the opposition — only provides more fodder for an arms race in spending,” he said.
Vaishnav has emerged as an authoritative voice on Indian elections, in particular the funding aspects of it, over the years.
“While the outcome of the next general election is up in the air, one attribute about it is already well known: it will be the most expensive general election in Indian history and perhaps one of the most expensive ever held in any democratic society,” Vaishnav wrote in an op-ed for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a top American think-tank.
Noting that the 2014 general elections costed USD 5 billion, Vaishnav said it was not inconceivable that overall expenditure will double again this year.
“The exorbitant cost of Indian elections has become a cardinal fact of the Indian political economy that is widely acknowledged and lamented – including by politicians and their donors. But it is not simply the material outlays that grab one’s attention, it is the manner in which the money flows,” he said.
Vaishnav rued that in India there is virtually zero transparency when it comes to political contributions.
It is next to impossible to either identify who has donated money to a politician or party or to figure out from where a politician has obtained his or her campaign funds, he said.
Very few donors are willing to disclose their political giving for fear of retribution should their preferred party not come to power, he noted.
The system of electoral bond, brought in by the current government, has not helped either, he argued and added that the system lacks transparency.
Crucial opposition meet
Opposition Feb 27 will meet to decide strategy against BJP for LS polls. The meeting of opposition parties on the Common Minimum Programme – a collective strategy to fight the BJP across the country in the upcoming 2019 polls – will be held to formulate a common strategy that was devised in a February 13 meeting of leaders of six major opposition parties, including the Congress, after which it was announced that there will be a pre-poll alliance and a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) for the Lok Sabha polls.
The meet was attended by Congress president Rahul Gandhi, TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Aam Aadmi Party Chief and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, NCP president Sharad Pawar, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah and others.
The Left parties, which have decided not to go in for any pre-poll alliances, are not likely to be part of the meeting, sources said.
PTI