The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notices to the Centre and Election Commission (EC) for their response on the matter of public interest litigation filed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ashwini Upadhyay against the use of “freebies" funded by public money and given during poll season. Taking note of it as a “serious issue", the court said the “freebie budget" is going beyond the regular budget.
Political efforts to buy votes with public money have indeed gone too far, with hand-outs of everything from laptops and mopeds to cash-transfer promises being doled out. And while the litigant is associated with India’s ruling party, the problem pervades our political system and needs to be resolved. To be sure, giveaways may well be justified if they serve some broad economic or social goal. But their brazen use as a charm for voters, only thinly disguised as welfare measures, is a clear distortion of the level electoral field every party must have, for it confers an unfair advantage on the party in power. With fiscal awareness low, electorates often fail to see that the largesse of public leaders is anything but. The EC should clamp down on the practice in a manner that can’t be accused of any bias.
