‘CORPORATE BANK POLITICS’

I’ve just coined this term. Let me clarify that it has nothing to do with the Corporate Bank. Actually, the context is the inquiry ordered by the Indian Government into the alleged foreign connection of Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) funds on the direction of the Delhi High Court given during a PIL hearing. Though I do not agree with certain aspects of the AAP poll campaign, I feel targeting only AAP is not proper. Wish the petitioner ML Sharma had broad-based his petition to know about the funding sources of big fishes like Congress and BJP. 

Now, I come to the term ‘corporate bank politics’. We are very much familiar with the ‘vote bank politics’ song of the Saffron brigade, which will  remain a chart buster till the 2014 battle is not over. But, we must also know that apart from votes, a candidate needs notes (money) for fighting and winning polls, which are taken care of by ‘corporate bank politics’.  

We have heard a lot about minority appeasement, but corporate appeasement is also a reality of our democracy. The simple reason is that there are no free lunches except those available in school mid-day meals. Saying it differently, no corporate would back a political party with its money just for charity. Any political investment from corporates materializes only when they had already been appeased or are sure of being appeased in future through favourable tweaking in govt policies.  

An ordinary voter, like you and me, may not get the benefits proclaimed in poll manifestoes in return for our votes, but corporates due to their sheer money power and in the name of development schemes always succeed in reaping huge gains from their money invested in political parties. 

It's fine for Narendra Modi to say that he wants to be the chowkidar (watchman) of India in Delhi. But here a million dollar question is: How would Modi say no to the corporates who are putting crores these days in organizing his hi-tech mega rallies? 

In contrast to BJP and Congress' banking on corporate money to fight polls, Arvind Kejriwal has collected money from the masses. This is a good step for cleansing politics. If he comes to power, this would enable him resist coporates pressuring govt for undue favours. In America also, political funding is quite transparent with special fund-raising dinners organized by political parties going to polls. We too can make political funding transparent and minimize indirect corporate influence on politics by exploring the idea of late Prime Minister VP Singh who had talked of govt financing poll expenses of candidates.