Kindly In Cash

To sponsor politicians as well as to bribe bureaucrats, officials and union leaders, business houses have worked out ingenious ways. In Bombay and other metros, there exists a parallel system which converts white money into black. Once an operator is contacted by a company to generate unaccounted money, he raises fictitious bills. These are cleared by the company through cheque payment. The operator puts the money in his account and gives the cash back to the company for a 10-per cent commission. A senior TNC official says these operators come in handy when amounts up to Rs 10-15 lakh have to be raised in black in a jiffy.

So far so good. But when larger amounts have to be paid, sometimes abroad, the businessman has to tap the hawala man. Business sources say the money reaches the politician through a circuitous route, with one hawala operator passing it on to a third party abroad, who routes it through a different hawala channel back to the politician in India. The outflow and inflow, involving two different channels and operators, guard against detection.

The politician is also helped out in kind. During election time, private planes, jeeps, cars and trucks are provided and advertisements promoting politicians are placed courtesy business houses. Last year, for example, a group of retailers supplied a booklet along with The Economic Times praising Congress MP Murli Deora. Posters are more often than not provided by ‘friends’ of the candidates.

Even the Congress spends no more than Rs 2 lakh per candidate. That is, if the party contests about 500 Lok Sabha seats, that’s a straight expense of about Rs 10 crore. But again, Rs 2 lakh does not win an election. In the metros, an MP might spend Rs 2-3 crore on his/her campaign. A high-profile candidate could spend much more. Even in the smaller cities, a financial input close to a crore would be necessary. Who else can foot the bill but business houses? The quid pro quos come later.