Let parties offer sops, even the moon

After opposition from political parties to the idea of the Election Commission (EC) scrutinising party manifestoes to eliminate “freebies”, the EC now indicates a modified directive. It says “pragmatism” means sops meant for socio-economically weaker sections are alright, but across-the-board ones, such as handing out televisions, etc, to voters, aren’t kosher.

At the very least, this is a case of misdirected attention. It goes without saying that we need wider political reform in India, but that — as these columns have often argued — must be more about how to change the way political parties raise and spend funds. Such a change would fundamentally alter one of the major inducements to corruption in public life.

As long as political parties collect and disburse funds in an unaccounted manner, political corruption, at the heart of concentric circles of institutionalised wrongdoing in India, will continue to affect even the quality of democracy in the country. This, or rather the maturity of our democracy — which is what the EC is really raising a question mark on — is, therefore, also related to reforming political funding.

But the EC seems to have got its focus all wrong. For one, it would be quite difficult to define and fix just what a freebie is, leave alone be able to differentiate between a right and wrong kind of sop on the ground. Two, it must be clear that openly announcing some measures, even if it be a television set for a section of voters, isn’t akin to furtively slipping wads of cash to people in exchange for votes.

Political parties have every right, in theory, to promise the sun and the moon in their manifestoes. And it isn’t as if Indian voters are unable to see gaps between promises and what is delivered. The real debate is about political funding and the quality of democracy.