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Politicians admit to breaking election law: yes, that's the great thing about democracy'
Politicians and their aides in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh admitted to violating election law to influence voters in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls through payments in the form of cash, goods, or services, according to a revealing cable sent to the State Department by Frederick J. Kaplan, Acting Principal Officer of the U.S. Consulate-General in Chennai. In conversations with a visiting consulate team, Karti Chidambaram of the Congress, M. Patturajan, confidant of Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers M.K. Alagiri and former Mayor of Madurai, and Member of Parliament Assaduddin Owaisi of the Majlis-e-Ittenhadul Muslimeen spoke without inhibition about how they, their principals, or their parties made payments to voters during the election campaign. In a cable sent on May 13, 2009 (206688: confidential), accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks, Mr. Kaplan detailed the role and impact of money power in corrupting the electoral process, drawing from information gathered from a variety of sources in the field: Bribes from political parties to voters, in the form of cash, goods, or services, are a regular feature of elections in South India. Poor voters expect bribes from political candidates, and candidates find various ways to satisfy voter expectations. From paying to dig a community well to slipping cash into an envelope delivered inside the morning newspaper, politicians and their operatives admitted to violating election rules to influence voters. The money to pay the bribes comes from the proceeds of fund-raising, which often crosses into political corruption. Although the precise impact of bribery on voter behavior is hard to measure, it no doubt swings at least some elections, especially the close races. Wherever Mr. Kaplan and his colleagues went, journalists, politicians, and voters spoke of the bribes as a commonly accepted fact of the election process. For example, during visits to slums in Chennai and Hyderabad, they learned that poor urban voters expect political parties to pay come election time. They were told by a DMK political strategist that slums are critical to a campaign because their population density and poverty allows them to be more easily mobilized' by bribes. Representatives of a non-governmental organisation working in a Chennai slum said that the two main political parties in Tamil Nadu the DMK and the AIADMK regularly bribe voters. They described a sophisticated operation to distribute cash: Weeks before the elections agents of the parties come to the neighborhood with cash carried in rice sacks. They have
http://www.thehindu.com/news/the-india-cables/article1541302.ece?css=print
5/23/2011
The Hindu : News / The India Cables : Cash for votes a way of political life in South Indi... Page 2 of 3
copies of the voter lists and they distribute the money based on who is on the list. The agents come in the middle of the night, between two and four in the morning, when the Election Commission is asleep.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/the-india-cables/article1541302.ece?css=print
5/23/2011
The Hindu : News / The India Cables : Cash for votes a way of political life in South Indi... Page 3 of 3
http://www.thehindu.com/news/the-india-cables/article1541302.ece?css=print
5/23/2011