Restore credibility

Restore credibility

Arrests of politicians in economic offences should turn spotlight on India’s ugly political funding system.

DK Shivakumar, a minister of the erstwhile Congress-JD(S) government in Karnataka, was arrested this week by Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money laundering case. The arrest came after four days of questioning by ED, on the charge of evasiveness by Shivakumar. Arrest on this account is what CBI took recourse to in the case of former finance minister P Chidambaram. The charges are serious and the law must take its course.

However, given the political backdrop, there’s also scope for a larger debate on issues of political funding that Shivakumar’s case, in particular, raises. It’s exceedingly curious that agencies find suspicious activity only in the case of opposition members. A highlight of Shivakumar’s political career is his association with resort politics. He has been the go-to man for his party units in several states when the loyalties of their legislators are suspect. Given that resort politics was at the heart of BJP’s recent comeback in Karnataka, these events foreground the nature of political funding in India. On this matter, unanimity prevails among political parties. There is no effort among major political parties to clean up. If anything, the situation has deteriorated.

Parties justifiably ask for an expansion in unrealistic election spending limits. Their demand, however, will carry greater credibility if there is a simultaneous effort to clean up funding sources and make them transparent. Instead, NDA introduced the insidious electoral bonds scheme, which removed even a modicum of transparency in the sourcing of political funds. At the same time restrictions on foreign funding of political parties were loosened, when other democracies ban such funding. Indian democracy’s regression in cleaning up political funding erodes the credibility of the entire system.

An intriguing aspect of Shivakumar’s arrest is that his plight elicited sympathy even among BJP members in Karnataka, including chief minister BS Yeddyurappa. However, vandalism and the enforcement of bandhs by Shivakumar’s supporters are unsupportable. Congress leaders should take the initiative to restrain them. At the same time agencies must be even-handed, and be seen to be so, when investigating economic crimes. One way to establish credibility is to follow through an investigation even if the suspect changes affiliation from an opposition party to BJP during the probe. Hopefully, even as another round of elections approaches and party hopping picks up pace, agencies won’t lose some trails.