HYDERABAD: Pointing out that political parties are resorting to “Three Bs” — ‘Bus, Bottle, Biryani’ — for their political gains, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday said that certain erosion has crept in the way the political parties patronise their workers and followers.
Speaking at the two-day Indian Democracy At Work annual conference on the theme Money Power in Politics, being organised by Forum for Democratic Reforms, Indian School of Business and University of Hyderabad, he reminisced the time when he was active in student politics in 1968, when small amounts of funds used to be collected from people for public meetings and announcements used to be made inviting people, rather than resorting to the “Three Bs”.
Good 4 Cs vs bad 4Cs
The Vice President also said that in order to field a candidate for contesting elections, nowadays political parties are resorting to the bad "four Cs" — caste, community, cash and criminality instead of the good "four Cs" — character, calibre, capacity and conduct.
Naidu opined that a law on the lines of Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act should be enacted that makes even the State governments responsible for maintaining fiscal discipline, in order to ensure that political parties do not make populist and unmindful promises and later spend money without sticking to fiscal discipline to fulfil those promises.
He also opined that all elections across the country must be conducted simultaneously in a short span and called for a consensus on the same by all political parties. "There are certain apprehensions among some political parties that simultaneous polls may benefit some parties with larger support base and charismatic leadership to the detriment of others. This apprehension does not seem to be well-founded as the Indian voter has demonstrated his maturity in voting," he said.
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, BJP State chief K Laxman and former Chevella MP Konda Vishveshwar Reddy also spoke on the occasion.