CHENNAI: The whole process of election gets distorted with the use of bribery and thuggery and the `cash and crime’ business model starts with the sale of tickets by political parties, said M G Devasahayam, former bureaucrat and currently Managing Trustee, Sustain, while addressing a meeting on `We will vote’ and `We will evaluate the candidates’ under the auspices of ExNoRa, an NGO, in the city a couple of days ago.
The meeting acquired significance coming as it did at the time of the Lok Sabha elections in the country.
The business model of cash and crime is thriving in AP, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in the south and all the three states occupy three ranks of that order, he said and added that it all starts with the purchase of tickets by the candidates and the parties selling the tickets to the prospective buyers.
A candidate contesting the Lok Sabha polls in AP spends at least Rs 10 crore to Rs 12 crore which he thinks as a sound investment in the business of politics. In a `no riskhigh profit’ model, an MP is assured of getting back his money after winning the elections by hook or by crook thereby allowing the seeds of political corruption to exist.
Stating that political parties are rogue institutions, he said every evil of democracy can be seen in the system of politics that is being practised by our politicians of late.
``The manifestos of political parties are empty documents and many burning issues like the problem aris ing out of special economic zones in the state and the signing of a nuclear deal against the nation’s interests are not found in these documents,’’ he lamented.
M B Nirmal, founder, ExNo- Ra International, and 5th Pillar, said that there was no mechanism available as of now to elect people of good nature.