New Delhi: The Congress on Friday claimed that the ruling BJP was indulging in “excessive commercialisation” of the electoral process and this was skewing the electoral field which in turn was detrimental for democracy. It also asked the BJP to issue a white paper on the amount it spent.
“The only strategy appears to be money, money and more money and at the end of the day, it is vital to correct this excessive commercialisation of the Indian electoral process because it creates distortion and skews a supposedly level playing field and completely erodes democracy at the base. Democracy after all is based on free and fair elections,” Congres spokespeson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said. He was quoting a report which said that a total of Rs 60,000 crore was spent on Indian elections, out of which 45 per cent was spent by the BJP.
Mr Singhvi also alleged that wrong schemes, illegal schemes and motivated schemes have contributed to “this completely skewed imbalanced approach to money power in elections”. "Free and fair elections are based on level playing field, level playing field is based on broadly equal opportunity for all parties, if, whether ruling party or other parties, are able to spend almost 45 percent and probably going up to 50 percent in the near future of the humongous amount spent on electoral strategy and electioneering then that means that the electoral verdict is influenced by money power, not by mandate power, not by grass roots power, not by mandate of the people,” he said.
The senior Congress leader also alleged that wrong schemes, illegal schemes and motivated schemes have contributed to "this completely skewed imbalanced approach to money power in elections.”
