Electoral Systems

Letter by E A S Sarma to CEC regarding 'irrational freebies' by political parties to voters and donations by corporate houses.

Any undue inducement by a political party in power to woo the voters at the cost of the public exchequer needs to be discouraged, though to call subsidies to the low-income households to enable them to secure access to basic amenities “irrational freebies” would be erroneous. Often, it is the freebies offered by the political executive to corporate businesses by way of huge tax concessions, relaxations in the laws and regulations in place to protect the natural resources to the detriment of the public interest and so on are far more toxic than the meagre subsidies offered to the disadvantaged sections of the society!

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by E A S Sarma

03/08/2022

IFB Agro Industries Approves Contributions to Political Parties in form of Electoral Bonds Subscription Shivam Dwivedi 4 April, 2022 https://krishijagran.com/news/ifb-agro-industries-approves-contributions-to-political-parties-in-form-of-electoral-bonds-subscription/ 
In fact, this is not the first time the company's board of directors has approved subscriptions to such electoral bonds. Citing the same issue, the company decided in October last year to approve contributions to political parties via subscription to electoral bonds in one or more tranches totalling not more than 25 crore for FY22. It did not, however, mention the name of the party.

"Furthermore, the company's alcohol business has been suffering and is under threat, as we have been singled out by certain excise officials for refusing to comply with their illegal demands; we have requested the Chief Minister of West Bengal and also the Finance, Commerce and Industry Minister of the State of West Bengal to look into/investigate the same," it said in its filing.

Electoral bonds are almost becoming an official bribe tool in this country https://youtube.com/embed/uHmkBIO8eZo?start=767&end=942   when people have been shouting at the
top of their wise voice like i am right
now that electoral bonds is possibly
another official form of bribe This example right in front of us --ifb agro industries limited

IFB Agro board okays ₹40 cr electoral bond contribution https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/ifb-agro-board-okays-40-cr-electoral-bond-contribution/articleshow/90628841.cms  "The Board of Directors in its meeting dated 31st March, 2022, considered such issues and in the best interest of the company and all its stakeholders decided to approve contributions to political parties by way of subscription to the electoral bonds in one or more tranches aggregating not more than ₹40 crores for the financial year 2022-23," said the IFB release.

In December 2020, IFB Agro had said its alcohol business had been "suffering-and is under threat". "...we have been singled out by certain excise officials for not succumbing to their illegal demands - have requested the Hon'ble Chief Minister of West Bengal and also from Hon'ble Finance, Commerce and Industry Minister of the State of West Bengal to look into/investigate the same," the company said in an exchange disclosure then.

How a Reliance-Funded Firm Boosts BJP’s Campaigns on Facebook Kumar Sambhav and Nayantara Ranganathan
March 27, 2022 https://janataweekly.org/how-a-reliance-funded-firm-boosts-bjps-campaigns-on-facebook/

Loopholes in how the Election Commission of India (ECI) applies the law and a selective application of Facebook’s rules and processes allowed India’s largest conglomerate to pump in millions of rupees to place and promote these surrogate advertisements to boost the reach and popularity of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP in the lead up to the 2019 parliamentary elections and nine state elections. Surrogate advertisements promote a political candidate but are not directly funded or authorised by that candidate.

When Facebook did crack down on surrogate advertisements, ostensibly to ensure transparency and accountability, it did so by mostly targeting advertisers promoting BJP’s main opponent, Congress, but allowed pages like NEWJ to continue.

The Reporters’ Collective (TRC), a non-profit media organisation based in India, and ad.watch, a research project studying political ads on social media, analysed data of all the 536,070 political advertisements placed on Facebook and Instagram from February 2019 through November 2020 to assess the influence of Facebook’s political advertising policies on elections in the country.

Facebook allowed a firm funded by Reliance to work the legal loophole to publish surrogate advertisements in favour of the BJP and help it reach a wider audience.

From February 2019 through November 2020, NEWJ placed 718 political advertisements over a period of 22 months and 10 elections, that collectively were viewed more than 290 million times by Facebook users, according to the Ad Archive data. The company spent 5.2 million rupees ($67,899) on these advertisements.

Many of these advertisements lit the fuse of anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan sentiments, Tommy-gunned BJP’s opponents and critics, and eulogised Modi’s government.

2018. In mid-November, Reliance Group company Reliance Industrial Investment and Holdings Limited (RIIHL) took over NEWJ with a 75 percent equity stake. It then lent the company 84 million rupees ($1.1m) via convertible debentures. NEWJ ended the financial year in March 2019 with revenues of a paltry 3.37 million rupees ($44,003) on which it netted a net loss of 22.06 million rupees ($288,046). 

Next year, Reliance pumped in another 125 million rupees ($1.63m) again through debentures in NEWJ. For the financial year ending March 2020, NEWJ did not record any revenues but did have advertising promotional expenses of 27.3 million rupees ($356,467), up from 6.06 million rupees ($79,128) the previous year.

Jio lent another 84.96 million rupees ($1.12m) to NEWJ at a negligible 0.0001 percent annual interest rate in the financial year ending March 2021. 

ECI and Facebook shut eyes

To insulate elections from money power, Indian election laws cap the money a candidate can spend on campaigns. If a third party, with no declared association with the candidate, pays for that candidate’s advertisements in print and electronic media, the ECI considers it as the candidate’s spending. The ECI also investigates instances where paid promotions are camouflaged as news in the traditional media. If found that a piece of “news” was indeed paid for to promote a candidate, the ECI adds the actual or notional expenditure on the advertisement to the candidate’s election expenses.

These rules, however, are not applied to the advertisements placed on social media.

In 2013, the ECI made it mandatory for all political parties, candidates and their authorised agents to get social media advertisements pre-certified from the commission and report the expenditure on them. But it kept the advertisements placed by third parties, entities not officially linked to the candidates, out of this regulation, leaving the window open for surrogate advertisements.

In its October 25, 2013 order, the ECI said social media was part of the electronic media and the advertisements would be regulated in a similar fashion. But it added that it was still considering how to deal with content posted by people other than the candidates and their parties “in so far as they relate to, or can be reasonably connected with, the election campaigning of political parties and candidates”.

Govt Has Cleared Linking Of Aadhaar & Voter Data. Past Experience Reveals How It Can Be Manipulated by KUMAR SAMBHAV 27 Dec 2021  https://article-14.com/post/govt-has-cleared-linking-of-aadhaar-voter-data-past-experience-reveals-how-it-can-be-manipulated-61c937a621c09 

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which manages Aadhaar, admitted that the data of 78 million people had indeed been illegally accessed and used to profile voters. Around the same election, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana deleted about 5.5 million voters from electoral rolls after their Aadhaar numbers were linked to voter identity cards, without the mandatory door-to-door verification. Many voters protested. 

The Reporters’ Collective examined internal documents of investigations conducted by state police and the Election Commission of India (ECI) in the two cases to detail the modus operandi of the political parties involved and the role of watchdog agencies...