Caps off

The Election Commission (EC) continues on its quixotic charge to clean up poll funding. A month before five states go to polls, it has mandated all candidates to open a bank account dedicated to campaign funds, into which cheques would pour in to fund the campaign and from which all expenses would be paid. This, we are told, is another milestone on the road to clean campaign finance. But this road is cluttered with many potholes and speed-breakers , some of those created by the government and the EC.

For years, the EC has persisted with caps on election funding. Last month, the EC magnanimously announced a rise in these caps after a gap of nearly four years. A candidate for an assembly election in a major state can now spend a princely Rs 16 lakh on a seat, up from Rs 10 lakh earlier. However, a candidate in Puducherry, which also goes to polls this summer, can’t spend more than Rs 8 lakh on her campaign. Anyone familiar with elections and how much money they call for would find these numbers laughable. Actual spending is several multiples of the EC’s absurd numbers and that’s a big reason why candidates and parties accept campaign funding in cash. Given the curbs, poll-specific bank accounts won’t clean up campaign finance.

The problem gets compounded when it comes to funding parliamentary elections. The EC caps campaign spending per candidate for a major state at Rs 40 lakh per constituency. This number is entirely arbitrary. On average , each parliamentary constituency has 7.6 assembly segments. So, going by the EC’s own logic, if an assembly candidate is allowed to spend Rs 16 lakh, then a Parliamentary candidate should be allowed to spend Rs 1.2 crore. But she can legitimately spend only a quarter of that amount.

The EC’s curbs have become a perverse incentive , forcing candidates and parties to bring in cash to contest elections. It’s time the babus at the EC took off their blinkers and scrapped these absurd limits on campaign finance. Let each candidate and party canvass for funds openly and spend all that they can, and we’ll be on the way to cleaner poll funding.