It’s raining cash this election season

Election Commission sleuths across India has seized about Rs 90 crore of unaccounted money from political activists, which they believe would have been used to allure voters.

Updated on: Mar 29, 2014, 02:20:05 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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It’s raining cash and gold in this summer's general elections even though the first phase of voting on April 10 is still a fortnight away.

Election Commission sleuths across India has seized about Rs 90 crore of unaccounted money from political activists, which they believe would have been used to allure voters. The seizure – made in the first 20 days of the 72-day election process – is huge compared to the previous elections in 2009, when a total of Rs 190 crore was seized during the entire 75-day period of the polls. Along with the cash, EC sleuths have seized about 30 kg of gold worth Rs 7.9 crore.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg, we suspect,” said an EC official who didn’t want to be named.

Andhra Pradesh tops the list of states where the largest amount of unaccounted cash and gold was seized by sleuths -- Rs 50 crore in cash and about 20 kg of gold, a state official told HT on Friday. The size of the haul might be related to the fact that along with the Lok Sabha polls, assembly elections in undivided Andhra will be held simultaneously in two phases on April 30 and May 7.

The money was found in sacks, public transport vehicles and boots of costly cars in Andhra, the official said.

Neighbouring Tamil Nadu comes a faraway second, with sleuths seizing Rs 12.58 crore in cash and about 5 kg of gold. The money was found hidden in boats and underground and in vehicles of various kinds.

Uttar Pradesh, where many parties are known to skip across the boundaries of the law, came third with a recovery of just Rs 10 crore. EC officials said states such as Punjab, Haryana and West Bengal were not far behind.

Despite teams of police and income tax officials in each of India’s 543 constituencies, EC officials admitted they may not be able to go much below the tip of the iceberg. “Many feel that if the commission imposes a ban on free movement of money it will hurt a large number of small traders,” an EC official said.

But these are early days and some more desperate parties and candidates playing for high stakes might enable vigilant officials to surpass seizure of Rs 190 crore during the previous Lok Sabha polls.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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