India is once again in the grip of a festive season. The 17th parliamentary election, to be held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19, is a core discussion point all across the country. The political parties have declared their candidates for constituting the 543-member House of Representatives. This parliamentary election will have many firsts. In addition to the use of electronic voting machines, the upcoming election will have a voter verifiable paper audit trail emanating from each machine after a vote is cast. This enhances the voter’s confidence that the vote cast has been done correctly and given to the targeted candidate only.

Though the 2014 election was the first social media characterised election, the 2019 election campaign will witness full blown deployment and application of social media, powered by 560 million internet users. When the campaigning comes to an end after the silent period commences 48 hours before polling day, what will be the fate of social media, who will regulate the same and who will be held accountable are still a grey zone.

Candidates reveal assets

Another first, of course, is that the parliamentary election is happening after the 2016 demonetisation followed by a serious vigil and heavy clampdown by Income Tax and Enforcement Directorate officials. This is supposed to have wiped out the stacks of currency notes that were for long hoarded by political parties and their funding conglomerates. The aftermath is quite interesting. The contesting candidates have started declaring at least a significant portion of their assets. The Association of Democratic Reforms, which has emerged as one of most potent and popular platforms on democratic rights and election processes, revealed that among the 1,266 contesting candidates who have filed nominations for the first phase of the election, 69 out of the 83 candidates from the Indian National Congress, 65 out of the 83 candidates from the Bharatiya Janata Party, 15 out of the 32 candidates from the Bahujan Samaj Party, all 25 candidates from the Telegu Desam Party, 22 out of the 25 candidates from the YSR Congress Party and all 17 candidates from Telengana Rashtriya Samiti have declared assets worth more than Rs10 million.

The average assets per candidate for Indian National Congress candidates is Rs219.3 million, for the Bharatiya Janata Party it is Rs145.6 million, Bahujan Samaj Party Rs126.3 million, YSR Congress Party Rs629.4 million, Telegu Desam Party Rs577.7 million and Telengana Rashtriya Samiti Rs458.7 million. This is despite the Supreme Court direction that the candidates will now have to disclose not only the income but also their source of income and also that of their families. This clearly shows that contesting elections in India is one of the most expensive processes, more so for the hapless and have-not contestants.

This is why, despite a comprehensive model code of conduct issued by the Election Commission, the political parties demonstrate their most sophisticated designs and skills to entice voters with money and materials. A common sight during election campaigns is the excessive hospitality to garner voter support. Some voters tend to behave like they are willing to eat for one day and remain hungry for the remaining five years. In every election, political parties and their candidates make huge innovative interventions to make use of money power. They use ambulances, police cars, bus overheads, bullock carts, wedding receptions without brides and grooms and various social functions like Mundan ceremony to distribute money. Most of the money reaches the distributing agencies much before the model code of conduct is announced. Against the maximum stipulated expenditure of Rs7 million per contesting candidate, the actual expenditure is estimated to be in the range of Rs70 million to Rs700 million. Ironically, most of the candidates do not cross the stipulated Rs7 million limit while submitting their expenditure affidavit.

It is found that southern states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu display the full blown strength of money power along with the states in northeast India which are exempted from national income tax laws. Kerala is found to be an exception as the voters are smart to vote for their favourite candidates despite all last moment incentives. To thwart the influence of black money, the government has now introduced electoral bonds which are primarily open funding of political parties by individuals and institutions. Under this, registered political parties are eligible to receive the bonds which a citizen of India can purchase and donate to a political party. By April 2019, the State Bank of India had sold bonds worth Rs4.956 billion in Maharashtra, Rs3.7 billion in Kolkata, Rs2.9 billion in Hyderabad, Rs2.059 billion in Delhi and Rs1.94 billion in Bhubaneswar. However, this is going to be opaque and controversial as the funding partners’ names are never disclosed.

Another very crucial element is the fact that civil society organisations have started educating the voters about the background of the contesting candidates much before polling day. The Association of Democratic Reforms has revealed the names of candidates with criminal cases while providing the backgrounds of the 1,266 candidates taking part in the first phase of the 2019 election. It found that among the major parties, 36 percent of the candidates from the Bharatiya Janata Party, 42 percent of the candidates from the Indian National Congress, 25 percent of the candidates from the Bahujan Samaj Party, 52 percent of the candidates from the YSR Congress Party, 16 percent of the candidates from the Telegu Desam Party and 29 percent of the candidates from Telengana Rashtriya Samiti have declared criminal cases against themselves. This early warning to voters about the contestants is something valuable and goes well with the Election Commission’s direction to make criminal records public.

Defence personnel

Another first in this election will be the right of defence personnel to vote at their place of posting as general voters. Earlier, there was a proxy voting system where defence personnel could use their franchise by giving authorisation in writing to their kin back home or through a postal ballot.

There are a significant number of brigades and divisions of defence personnel in areas like the northeast, Punjab, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir. By virtue of their presence in the military cantonments, they along with their family members, can now vote for local candidates, wherein as voters that have no connection in terms of local development, orientation and even political parties. This could be a sequel to what the Standing Committee on Defence recommended in 2016 after finding that 3 million defence service personnel and their family members were unable to exercise their right to vote because of the complicated procedures involved in proxy and postal voting.

Lama is a senior professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi