Telangana elections: Election hour is bonus season for voters as candidates bypass spending limits

Mahesh Bacham

Hyderabad: Two more days of campaigning are left in Telangana. Two more days of wooing the voter with speeches and promises in public, with money and liquor in private. The Election Commission has capped a candidate’s campaign spending at Rs 28 lakh, and audits the candidates' account statements, a mandatory requirement under EC rules, after polling. The EC has even put an itemwise cap----like Re 1 for a water packet, Rs. 5 for tea, Rs.120 for chicken biryani, Rs. 3,500 for 400-watt loudspeakers, Rs.1,100 for hiring a car per day, to name a few. Also, as per EC rules, candidates have to maintain a day-to-day expense statement which is monitored. These measures have led to seizure of about Rs 104 crore so far, according to media reports.

Candidates use creative methods to get around the EC rules and escape the vigilance of the police and other officials tasked with checking the use of unaccounted cash in campaigning. Like using the birthday of the son of poor worker as a campaign platform, or getting local residents to perform lavish poojas, organise social get togethers and functions which the party “sponsors”. These events, attended mostly by local residents and people from surrounding villages who are bussed in, then become a platform for candidates and party workers to speak about their party’s performance and make promises, like financial assistance, for the future.

Telugu daily Sakshi reported two such incidents, one in Shivaru in Hyderabad where a worker spent Rs 2 lakh for his son’s birthday and another in Karimnagar where a teacher conducted a pooja spending more than Rs 4 lakh. Both were attended by political leaders and local residents in large numbers who returned home with gifts.

Monitoring effective only in urban areas

While the EC monitoring of expenditure is more effective in urban centres like Hyderabad, distributing money and liquor to woo voters and paying them for campaigning is common in rural and semi-urban constituencies. “Daily wage labourers and others who do not have regular employment are paid around Rs 200 to attend political rallies,” said Raju, a college attendant in Bodhan. “Recently, the Congress candidate spent almost Rs. 50,000 for a meeting,” said S Kumara Swamy, a resident of Shakkar colony in Bodhan. “He threw a party providing free food to all people in the area. But there is no one to report the event to the Election Commission with proof”.

But B Ganga Shankar, Congress MPP (Mandal Parishad President) from Bodhan insists that all that the party workers and candidates do is “door to door campaign to tell the people about the party’s policies mentioned in the manifesto and how they help poor farmers and others”. And it does help that many of the candidates are personally wealthy.

“The Congress candidate here Sudharshan Reddy is very rich compared to us,” says Md. Hamaz, TRS party worker and father of Shakil Aamir, the current MLA who is contesting again. “Money and liquor might play a role but we are trying our best to reach the people through the schemes that our CM K Chandrashekhar Rao has implemented”.

Yet, in the midst of high spending candidates and campaigns, there are a handful of independent candidates spending the little money they can afford. “My total campaign budget is just Rs 2 lakh,” said R Anil Kumar, independent candidate in Malkajgiri constituency of Medchal Malkajgiri. “I am planning my campaign with the help of relatives, friends and social media. If I win, it will be great but even if I lose, I would not lose much”.

Bonus seasosnin Bodhan

Bodhan town is famous for its now defunct 80-year-old Nizam sugar factory. The sky is littered with over 20 air balloons displaying the symbols of TRS, BJP and Congress, each costing Rs.18,000 including the gas cylinder to keep it in the air. Campaign vehicles with loud speakers are continuously roaming the streets broadcasting party songs and speeches. While TRS’s mobile broadcasts focus on the schemes and programmes implemented by KCR, the BJP plays songs criticising KCR and Congress vehicles play songs in praise of its candidate.

On November 30, the usually empty Ambedkar statue site in Bodhan was filled with people to see a Congress rally by its candidate Sudharshan Reddy. But the main attraction for the crowd was getting a glimpse of actress Vijayashanti, the Congress’s star campaigner. As the campaign vehicles arrived, the crowd erupted on seeing Vijayashanti. Then the speeches began, which no one paid attention to (a few people were listening and it was not audible to most of the crowd). “All these people have come here to support the Congress whose victory is inevitable,” said an optimistic party worker busy recording the event on his mobile.

“Women who work as daily wage labourers attend rallies like these for money and are also drafted by party workers to canvas in the streets,” said V Saidu, a roadside cobbler. “I see the same women attending a TRS rally one day and a Congress one on the next”. The reaction of the women was straightforward: “Why should we lose an opportunity of making some money?”.

Another Congress worker Ajaz Hussain claimed: “Shakil Aamir, sitting TRS MLA spent around Rs one crore for a public meeting in Bodhan that CM KCR attended”. At the same time, Shakil Aamir has people like Shaikh Rahim, a TRS worker who does canvassing in his pink cycle covered with TRS party flags. “I cycle to all the villages in Bodhan constituency telling people to vote for TRS. They pay me Rs 200 to 300 per day and provide three meals,” said Rahim.

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