Economic Highlights

New Delhi, 25 March 2024

Shady US Funds Mould Poll Bonds

OPEN GATES FOR MURKY DEALS

By Shivaji Sarkar 

Is it the MNC-linked corporate sector in a world of globalised economy that is dictating the course of political establishment in India or is it the other way round? This is the basic question that has cropped up in the follow-up to the Supreme Court verdict in the electoral bonds case.A handful of companies today hog the limelight for a reason no nation would feel proud of. Is it the beginning of a transnational corporation corporate war? 

It is roiling democracies from the US to India with equal elan. On March 22, two incidents rocked Delhi -- seizure of Congress funds for not filing an income-tax return, though political parties are not supposed to pay income tax, and the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for alleged involvement in a liquor scandal by the Enforcement Directorate in a midnight drama. 

Almost at the same time in New York, US Attorney General Letitia James indicated that she could be preparing to seize former President Donald Trump’s assets there, if he does not pay $ 464 million bond in financial fraud case. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told Judge Juan Merchan that fewer than 270 of the 170,000 documents turned over to Trump’s lawyers pertain to the hush money case. 

What a similarity! In both these cases corporate money is involved and thousands of km away they function the same way. Are the two of the greatest democracies becoming the proverbial banana republics?Is it that globalisation links them together? 

For a mere Rs 16000-odd crore electoral donations, has the country been pawned! A few select group of companies, many with international links, have linkages with donations, deals and contracts worth billions and the people are the unknown victims debating the unsavoury practices. It calls for a deeper probe as deals influence decisions. 

About 10 political parties including the BSP and CPM, refused bond money. The CPM even is a party to the cases in courts filed primarily by Association for Democratic Republic (ADR). Janata Dal-U and Trinamool Congressalleged that certain amounts of bonds were dumped in their offices. There is a lottery king, who showers donations to DMK, which had passed a bill banning lottery but that could not turn into law as the governor refuses to sign it. There are strange ways of bonds travelling to centres of power in any State -- BJP Rs 11,500 crore; TMC Rs 3214;BRS Rs 2278 crore; DMK Rs 1230 crore and YSR Congress Rs 662 crore and Congress Rs 1356 crore. 

Besides, there’s less known development. On February 18, 2024, Jobanjot Singh Sandhu, one of the accused in the Rs 21000 crore Mundra port drugs haul case, escaped from police custody at Amritsar in Punjab. The value of one haul is greater than the total bonds sale.On January 9, 2024, Ecuador declares state of emergency after “extremely dangerous” druglord Jose Adolfo Macias, alias Fito, escapes from jail and unrest breaks out at several prisons. Are these incidents a pattern that democracies need to be wary of? 

Hyderabad based Megha Engineering gave Rs 584 crore to the BJP and its group company Western UP Power Transmission Company chipped Rs 80 crore, a total of Rs 664 crore. Ironically, the UP power consumers have lodged extortion complaints by manipulating bills. Sadly, these have gone unheard. Quick Supplyhaving reported links with a large groupcontributed Rs 410 crore and mining group Vedanta also made contributions. Vedanta, Western Power group and MKJ owning Keventer brand are also among the top Congress funders donating more than Rs 100 crore each. 

Despite lottery ban in Andhra Pradesh, the Future Gaming donate Rs 154 crore bonds to YSR Congress. Interestingly, the Telegu Desam Party got 55 percent of electoral bond earnings in January 2024. It received Rs 80 crore between April 2019 and September 2023. But from October 2023 to February this year, TDP received about Rs 130 crore bonds. Of this Rs 118 crore was received in January alone, just at the nick of elections. 

A loss-making Kolkata company, Avees, which shares office space with several other companies on Waterloo Street, bought Rs 112.5 crore bonds and parked with Congress Rs 53 crore and TMC Rs 45.5 crore.  It funds the BJP, BJD and AAP too. There are several names like LN Mittal of the Arcelor-Mittal group, Laxmidas Vallabhbhai Merchant, linked to a Gujarat company, Indigo’s Rahul Bhati, who fund different political parties. Is it pressure or lure? 

It is a diverse link. But all are pointers that the corporates are working in tandem with the political parties for mining their futureignoring the well-being of the people.A question nobody answers how so much of money is available in a poor country.Are they earning high by fleecing consumers? Corporate linkage is indicated by some studies in the US.Is not the electoral bond based on the US Supreme Court ruling? 

The corporate linkage has caused concern in the US since 2000. Corporate Money in Politics by Andrew Wilson, in the MITSloan’s Magazine writes, the Centre for Responsive Politics in its website Opensecrets.Org calculated that in 2010,large public action committees (PACs) - corporate funders, spent $63 million. By 2020, it rose to $2.1 billion. 

In 2010, the US Supreme Court undid century-old campaign funding restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to “spend unlimited funds on elections”.  This results in more centralisation of power. The top one percent of donors now give 93 percent of the money, with a mere 100 persons providing 70 percent of it. 

The U.S. has, what is essentially legalized corruption that gives outsized influence to the wealthy and powerful. What in other countries is done in back rooms and with envelopes slipped under the table is aboveboard in the U.S, Wilson observes. “The point is that major corporations have been knee-deep in political influence for decades”. He asks the businesses to answer, “Are the politicians you support blocking progress on our biggest challenges, or are they helping us build a better world?” 

Just see the similarity in the pattern with India. Wilson names 24 top global companies who doled out $170 million to US legislators over the past four years.Should now Indians rethink globalisation and change their own political system? It is not expanding businesses but creating an alliance of the murky corporate finance that influences political and electoral decisions. Must not the country end all such misty fundings?---INFA 

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)