Price of a M P ticket

‘Crores for seat’ spill from nominee mouth
G.S. RADHAKRISHNA

Hyderabad, March 28: The Telengana Rashtra Samiti candidate for Secunderabad announced on camera last evening that he had “bought” the Lok Sabha ticket for Rs 10 crore, landing his party in the eye of a storm and himself in hospital.

S. Venkat Reddy, a realtor who made his money during the 2005-07 real estate boom, thought he was among friends at Telengana Bhavan when he let slip that he had paid to get the seat. But word spread, and when TV journalists arrived to confirm the news, Venkat said on camera: “Yes, I have paid money to the party to get the ticket.”

Aspirants already angry at being left out of the fourth list of candidates, released yesterday, erupted. S. Rambabu, one of them, and his supporters thrashed Venkat and chased him out of the office. He is in hospital with leg injuries.

Venkat today denied he had “bought” the seat that includes the better part of metropolitan Hyderabad, including the upscale Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills.

“The charge is ridiculous. I only confided that I had made contributions to the party fund and not to leaders individually,” he said in hospital.

But party workers were not buying the claim. A huge number gathered at the TRS headquarters in Banjara Hills, demanding an explanation, amid allegations that many more had paid for tickets.

The workers burnt an effigy of TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who could not move around because of the protests. Women workers covered the face of a statue of “Telengana Talli (Mother Telengana)” at the party office, saying: “Telengana Talli would be ashamed to see the happenings around her.”

The Election Commission has issued notices to Rao and Venkat, the chief electoral officer said this evening.

Rao could not be reached for comment. Allies Telugu Desam, CPM and the CPI, who had left 9 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats and 48 of the 294 Assembly seats to the TRS, also would not comment.

Another realtor alleged he had paid Rs 7 crore for the Serilingampally Assembly seat but didn’t get the ticket. Supporters of yet another aspirant, N. Venkateswarlu, who allegedly paid a huge sum but did not get the Bhupalapalli seat, ransacked the home of MP Vinod Kumar, accusing him of making the deal but not delivering. “The MP should now pay us back with interest as he has kept the money for over six months,” a supporter said.

Similar demands for repayment have come from aspirants for the Zaheerabad Lok Sabha seat and the Jedcherla and Gajwel Assembly seats.

Rao today decided to contest from Medak. Actress Vijayshanti has been proposed for Mahbubnagar, which Rao was expected to contest.

The allegation that seats were being sold also hit Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam Party, whose workers today ransacked offices in Anantpur, Warangal and Vijayawada.

In one of my earlier posts I had mentioned that Transfers and Posting was the fountainhead of Corruption.
I was wrong.
The price a candidate pays to get a ticket from his party and the amount he spends in an election is the root cause.
This gentleman, if I may call him so, although his profession "realtor" would not have allowed him to remain one, has spent 10 crores for getting the ticket and he would be spending another 50 crores or so to fight the elections.
He has not spent that money to serve the people.
He has to recover the money.
So, he will use 1) transfers and postings, 2) to push throught deals for businessmen through ministries concerned, 3) raise issues in parliament on payment, 4) submit false bills for telephone, electricity, travel and miscellaneous (This Misc expenses is a very powerful tool to take money from the exchequer) and yes 5) the 2 crore they get every year to spend on their constituency against MPLADs, Courtsey P V Narsimha Rao.
Of course, PV initiated this scheme when he himself was accused of having taken one crore bribe from a broker in a suitcase. To keep the MP's mouth he started giving each MP 1 crore. That has been now increased to 2 crore and Inshallh, you can rest assured it will increase to 5 crores when the next lot of corrupt politicans come to parliament. They know how to line their nests.
I am giving a piece from the Wikepedia on how this MPLADs are used

"Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) is a scheme formalated by Government of India that provides that each member of parliament of India has the choice to suggest to the Head of the District works to the tune of Rs.1 crore per year, to be taken up in his/her constituency. Elected Members of Rajya Sabha representing the whole of the State as they do, may select works for implementation in one or more district(s) as they may choose. Nominated Members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha may also select works for implementation in one or more districts, anywhere in the country. The allocation per MP per year stands increased to Rs.2 crores from the year 1998-1999.

Since start there have been reports of malpractices in running the scheme and there have been demands to scrap it. In 2006, a scandal was exposed by a TV Channel, that showed MPs taking bribe for handing over project work under the MPLADS. A 7 member committee was set up to probe the matter".

I wonder what happened to the probe. Probably nothing as during crisis, birds of a feather flock together, to protect their interests.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE THIS PROBLEM?

By bringing back election expenses to reasonable limits.
At this rate, no matter how qualified a person is, he would never be able to stand for elections. Only the moneyed class would be able to stand. The money of course would have come from illegal means.
At the rate our government taxes us, nobody who paid his taxes honestly could accumulate the money required to fight the present election in 3-lifetimes, leave alone one lifetime.

WHEN THE FOUNDATION IS WEAK, HOW CAN YOU PUT UP A ROBUST DEMOCRACY.

Radheshyam