A week of free hits indeed. K opened the innings with quite a bundle of goodies but J’s slog overhaul puts his spirited knock in the shade. We voters are now spoilt for choice. Of course, ‘we’ should ideally mean only women voters, for most of the sops are aimed at them, but then if the homemakers are happy, what have we, I mean the other part of ‘we’, to grumble about? And even less reason to complain, what with our (meaning man and wife now) ambitious wards all set to walk away with laptops!
So, if freebies are the yardstick, the ‘woman of the match’ seems a foregone result, with J more than matching K’s long running free show. After all, J’s Grinder and Mixie is a better option than K’s Grinder or Mixie. No doubt, K has offered 15 kgs of rice more to grind but that’s no big deal considering the fact that much of the free rice is unpalatable and in any case lands in the black market. And with more pebbles than grain to grind, less of that rice might actually do good to those free grinders. But women voters, and their not-so-better-halves, need not worry. The rice deficit is more than compensated by a free fan, meant specifically for the womenfolk, but not specifically forbidding the men from partaking of the free air. Now, that makes for a cool family.
Of course, the State’s finances will likely remain out in the cold, whoever wins. With such competitive populism and a no-holds-barred race to burn the biggest hole in the treasury, TN’s economy is all set to come to a, er, grinding halt. These manifestoes are really death warrants for the exchequer. It’s only a matter of time for the future FM to start scratching the paint off empty Govt chests, winner notwithstanding, because, there are and will be quite a lot of ‘unmanifest’ free offers during the campaign and unfortunately present politicos, when in power, honour these poll-time promises, with an eye on the future. For instance, already, the DMK has indicated that besides completing the backlog of free TVs, a washing machine for a family apiece might be in the works. No doubt, there is much dirty linen to wash. Expect the opponent to top that with a cool offer of a free fridge or AC! Who knows, post election, we may as a fruition of poll promises be owning the State Secretariat, old and new, Ft St George, large tracts of Marina beach, the lighthouse included, Rippon buildings, and a host of such cherished landmarks all over the State. I am leaving out Central and other Rly stations because Mamta might have promised them for Bengal.
But wait! Don’t we as taxpayers already own these? Really, the ridiculousness of the free offers strikes you bluntly if you consider the aforesaid loony example of, say, landing the DGP office as your outhouse. We the people collectively own not just the Secretariat or sundry other State properties but also the State Treasury from which all those freebies emanate. For political parties to be propagating these State doles as coming from their personal or party kitties is a gross misrepresentation of facts and qualifies as a fraudulent poll practice. A look at the promotionals wherein we have these beaming leaders giving away handouts like magnanimous maharajas, or ranis, is enough to prove this preposterous passing off. That this give and take charade is happening in a supposedly rational land populated by so-called self-respecting people is the ultimate travesty. After all, outstretched lazy hands, unwilling to work and greedy, blinkered eyes focussed firmly on gifts rather than the ‘giver’ will only encourage such dubious charity and charlatans. Aah, how the leaders know their voters! Or maybe, the voters believe if they do not accept the freebies, the funds will anyway vanish!
Let’s leave this sinister trade-off between the politicos and people behind and move to the party of the third part in the poll triangle, namely, the EC. Much ado is made daily about this watchdog’s escapades that one is led to believe the forthcoming polls will be a watershed of sorts. Well, a watchful and active EC will surely make it harder for the candidates to violate norms. A vigilant officialdom, for instance, can certainly act as a deterrent against payment of cash to voters, now that the techniques are out in the open. Ditto with many such common offences. But even here, the EC will have to rely heavily on complaints from opponents. With the poll scenario littered with pots and kettles, most such complaints may actually be red herrings or frivolous. The list has already crossed 40,000 and will likely zoom as poll day draws near. That’s no easy count.
But these are just surface offences, often very obvious. What of the macro electoral frauds? For instance, there is much focus in media as well as by the authorities on bribing of voters on poll eve. All attention is on handouts in cash or kind, pre-poll. But I wonder how all the freebies announced by political parties fail to qualify as bribes. After all, a promise to pay, post-performance, is still quid-pro-quo. No doubt, all electoral promises have shades of a bribe, but do not such open announcements of tangible gifts tantamount to blatant bribe? Is there merit in the argument that a State cannot be said to bribe its citizens? How can individual politicos and parties commit the future government, even it be under their control, huge outlays when they are not in power? How can they, in advance, overrule the Legislature’s powers to sanction those funds and the bureaucratic wisdom in spending them? With freebies galore vitiating the voter’s sense of judgement, the minimum the EC can do is to seek an opinion from the SC on whether such free for all is legal.
There is a greater penny-wise- pound-foolish folly on the part of the EC. So, lugging around cash is a sure sign of an impending electoral malpractice, we are told. Indeed, much hard cash is rolling all over the land even without elections. But should not the diligent EC, which is so worked up over cash in transit, be actually addressing the sources? A far easier and more fruitful method would be to walk into the households of party leaders, candidates, their cronies and even the party offices. Cars with cash must have taken off from somewhere and smart EC officials can easily guess the starting points. But alas, while the obvious and copious fountainheads remain underground, it is the paltry spray and sprinkle that seems to catch the official eye!
Well, we wanted free and fair polls. The first half appears to have already come true. Of fairness, as in love and war, in polls too, anything goes!
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