Poll expenditure set to exceed $5 bn: US expert

Washington, February 22

The upcoming polls to elect 543 members of the Lok Sabha 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 combined US presidential and congressional elections in 2016 cost $6.5 billion. If the 2014 Lok Sabha elections cost an estimated $5 billion, there is little doubt the 2019 election will easily surpass that,” Milan Vaishnav, senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank, said.

“The uncertainty associated with the coming election — with polls suggest a narrowing gap between the BJP and the Opposition — only provides more fodder for an arms race in spending,” he said.

“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.

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. The system lacks transparency, he said. — PTI