Biting the bullet
Tamil Nadu CM Jayalaitha admitted this week during an interview with a TV channel that she could not afford to be hostile to the centre since she needs the government of India to loosen its purse strings so she can fulfil many of the electoral promises she has made. She admitted she had asked PM Manmohan Singh during her recent meeting in Delhi for – hold your breath – Rs 2.52 lakh crores to rescue the state from debt.
Just as reality was kicking in about the state of finances in TN, the CM was faced with another hike in the price of diesel and LPG. The centre told states to soften the blow to the people by withdrawing Value Added Tax (VAT). “Having raised the prices of diesel, kerosene and LPG, the centre has no right to ask the state government to reduce VAT,” Jayalalitha protested explaining that VAT accounted for a major share of the state government’s revenue.
In the game of one-upmanship that has governed the relationship between Jayalalitha and former CM Karunanidhi, it was just a matter of time before the latter said the CM should do a Mamata here, referring to the fact that the West Bengal CM withdrew cess bringing down the price of a LPG cylinder by Rs 16. To further needle her, Karunanidhi said that when the DMK was in power, sales tax on petroleum products was reduced twice and subsidy was given to LPG when it was hiked by the centre. The fact that he, an ally, has now criticized the UPA for increasing diesel price by Rs 3 per litre, LPG by Rs 50 per cylinder and kerosene by Rs 2 per litre has more to do with how angry he is with the UPA because daughter Kanmozhi continues to languish in Tihar for 40 days now.
Coming back to Jayalalitha, she got baited (and of course, political compulsions played their part) and announced a reduction in VAT by 4 percent so an LPG cylinder will cost Rs. 14.73 less (i.e., around Rs 390). But it means that the state’s revenue will be down by another Rs 120 crores!
Powerless with power
One of the reasons why the DMK was voted out was “current” and the lack of it. When in opposition, Jayalalitha had railed against Karunanidhi on power cuts but being the CM is a different ballgame. She is faced with a debt of Rs 45,000 crores in the power sector. Not only that, while districts continue to have long power cuts, this metropolis too follows a one-hour load-shedding schedule.
The only way to bridge the 3000 MW deficit gap is by augmenting power but that’s not going to happen overnight. So, in the meanwhile, power officials came up with a four-hour staggered power cut so as to expedite the thermal plant at Vallur in North Chennai, work on which is underway. And for that to happen, the Electricity Board had to put up with the loss of 300 mw of power from the Nellore-Alamathi 400KV line from June 21 to 30.
But the outrage among the city’s population had Jayalalitha backtracking hastily and trotting out the excuse that the power cut had been deferred due to “technical reasons.” Next she announced a two-hour power cut this week, but that has not happened either. Biting the bullet makes even amma powerless.
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EC proposes...
That Election Commission puts a ceiling of Rs 16 lakh for candidates seeking election to an assembly seat. Although Tamil Nadu attained notoriety for money power being used by candidates, according to the statement of accounts presented by 2,525 of the 2,748 candidates, not even one of them surpassed the limit. Even more amazingly, most of them claim that they barely spent more than even Rs 10 lakh.
The EC had specified charges for everything – from vehicles, to different sizes of flexi boards, hotel stays, meals, shawls (ponnadai) and such like.
How does the EC reconcile the statement along with what is well known – that the DMK poured money to win the assembly elections? And that people pocketed the money and voted for the AIADMK bringing in Jayalalitha for the third time (technically, fourth time) as CM with a massive mandate?
How does the EC not find the claims dubious considering it seized nearly Rs 40 crores in cash in the run-up to the elections? According to a senior official from the expenditure monitoring cell (comprising officers from the income tax, central excise and audit and accounts departments), shadow expenditure registers for each candidate were maintained. The department will compare its figures with the one submitted by the candidate and figure out whether they were fudged.
Fudging Figures?
Now it is well known that the race between then deputy CM Stalin and AIADMK’s Saidai Duraisamy in Kolathur assembly constituency was very close. In fact this week, Saidai has gone to court and so have Raja Kannapan, AIADMK candidate from Tirupathur and S Ramachandran , the AIADMK nominee from Tiruvannamalai Assembly challenging the victory of Stalin and two other former DMK ministers.
The subtext is therefore that money was lavished on voters by both sides. Someone I know told me that the DMK gave Rs 2,000 after a midnight knock on the intervening night of April 12/13 at her house (under Kolathur constituency) because there were four votes (Rs 500 per vote). Her family was also told to collect breakfast and biryani packets after casting their vote at a nearby booth. On counting day on May 13, just how close the race was evident with the fortunes of the two candidates see-sawing through the day and late into the night. Finally Stalin was announced as the winner towards midnight after severe tension between the DMK and AIADMK cadres at the counting centre in Loyola college.
And yet, according to the poll expenditure statement submitted to the Election Commission by Stalin, he has spent only Rs 3.32 lakh on his campaign. He has shown an expense of Rs 66,700 on public meetings but just Rs 980 on decorations like gates, arches, cutouts and banners. His opponent at least claimed to have spent double the amount. Saidai’s expenditure statement says he spent Rs 6.12 lakhs.
Money, Money, Money
Jayalalitha, whose AIADMK -alliance swept the polls with 203 seats, has shown Rs 9.5 lakh as her expenditure to win from Srirangam assembly constituency. The CM, who lavished Rs 190 crore of development projects during her three-day thanksgiving trip to her constituency last week, claims to have spent Rs 20,650 for public meetings, Rs 14,170 for campaign material like handbills, posters, video and audio cassettes, Rs 58,300 on TV and print campaigns, Rs 65,700 on vehicles and Rs 32,200 on decorations and banners. Current finance minister O Paneerselvam (remember Amma made him CM after the Supreme Court quashed her appointment in 2001) spent Rs.8.48 lakh for his election from Bodinayakanur constituency.
Former chief minister M Karunanidhi, who could not come back as CM despite all the welfare schemes his government unfurled, claims to have spent Rs 4,47,615 on his election from Tiruvarur assembly constituency. Another head of a party, Vijayakanth (President of the DMDK), claims to have spent Rs 7.97 lakh, of which he has marked Rs 3.6 lakh as being “miscellaneous” expenditure. Even so it is interesting that Vijayakanth spent nearly Rs 8 lakh in backward Rishivandhyam while Stalin only spent Rs 3.32 lakh in Kolathur, which is one of Chennai’s 16 constituencies.
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Among the losers was Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K V Thangkabalu, who said he spent Rs 4.04 lakhs trying to get elected from Mylapore constituency. His statement said that he received Rs 10 lakh from the Indian National Congress and Rs 5 lakh from a private granite company based in Adyar. After making such a mess with Congress tickets and declaring himself a candidate through sleight of hand, he should have known that no amount of campaigning and spending money would appease an electorate that was livid with his trickery. Incidentally, the 223 candidates who did not furnish their figures to the EC are liable for action.
Bravo, Your Honour
Here’s a heart-warming story particularly in the context of stories about judges like Dinakaran who allegedly grabbed land meant for Dalits and former chief justice Balakrisnan whose wealth would make some acquisitive politicians seem poor. For Sathya, the daughter of a poor agricultural worker, studying in the Parisudhan Engineering College in Thanjavur district, a judge and advocates of the Madurai bench of the Madras high court took the form of Santa, donating Rs 75,000 to her after passing the hat around on April 28.
Sathya had managed to get admission to the college after paying Rs 50,000 as fees for the first year. For the second year, a bank had given her a loan of Rs 37,000 but the college refused to let her sit for the exam because she had run up arrears of Rs 7,970 for the first year and Rs 37,000 for the second year. The girl petitioned the high court but the management stood its ground saying they could not allow her sit to for the exam till she cleared the arrears.
Mr Justice Venkatraman of the Madurai bench of the Madras high court was moved by Satya’s plight, when she moved a petition that she would have to discontinue her engineering studies because she could not pay college fees, and set an example by donating Rs 10,000. Seeing the judge’s altruism, lawyers including Veera Kathiravan, Ajmal Khan, Isaac Mohanlal and T Lajapathi Roy matched his contribution with Rs 10,000 each. Government pleaders including Herald Singh, V Rajasekar, Viswalingam, G R Swaminathan and K Mahendran were not far behind offering Rs 5,000 each.
It reminds me of a coconut seller’s plea near an engineering college in Tiruvarur district recently, saying he did not want the DMK government’s freebies but wanted an educational loan for his daughter who was going to pass out of the tenth standard . It also makes you wonder about a management which cannot admit a student for free considering that engineering colleges collect several lakhs as “donations” for giving admission to students. It also makes you wonder about politicians who amass wealth illegally and start educational institutions but spare no thought for poor students like Satya.
