Indian vote buying scam and arrest of six lawmakers

LAHORE: Although incidents relating to the prevalence of electoral frauds, manipulation and rigging, etc are fairly common worldwide, and are perhaps as old as the history of ballot exercises with no end in sight, the cash-for-votes scandals involving parliamentarians themselves have been occurring relatively less frequently.

However, in countries like India, once such cash-for-votes scams involving legislators were exposed, they had serious consequences as the long arm of law immediately sprang into action, unlike Pakistan, where mere resignations have served the purpose till date. Research conducted by the "Jang Group and Geo Television Network" shows that in July 2008, a cash-for-votes scandal had rocked the Indian political system, not only leading to arrests of at least six lawmakers but Opposition parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had also demanded the resignation of the-then Congress prime minister Manmohan Singh over allegations that his government had greased the palms of various sitting members of parliament in a bid to survive a vote of no confidence.

The Indian cash-for-votes scandal was allegedly masterminded by a BJP politician, Sudheendra Kulkarni, to favour the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance led by Sonia Gandhi. Kulkarni was accused to have bribed his own BJP colleagues to help premier Manmohan Singh survive a confidence vote on July 22, 2008, after an alliance spearheaded by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had withdrawn support from the sitting regime.

Bharatiya Janata Party President Rajnath Singh was quoted as saying: "Over the last three or four days, there has been pressure on our MPs to take money to either abstain or vote for the government, and this has been done by the Congress and their supporters. Now that it has been exposed, the prime minister should resign his post. This scandal has lowered the dignity of our parliament. Never in the history of our parliament has such a shameful and revolting scandal unfolded."

BJP lawmaker, Ashok Argal, had interrupted the parliament's proceedings by producing bags stuffed with currency notes amounting to Indian Rs30 million. The "Times of India" had maintained: "Ashok alleged the money had been given to him to abstain from voting and help Manmohan Singh's government survive. Two other BJP lawmakers levelled similar allegations. Lok Sabha television's coverage of the debate was immediately interrupted and images of Mother Teresa were broadcast instead. A spokesman from the ruling Congress party, Rajeev Shukla, immediately rejected the allegations."

Resultantly, during September 2011, Sudheendra Kulkarni, a former aide to India's top opposition leader L.K.Advani, was arrested in connection with an alleged cash-for-votes scandal. He told the court that he was "a whistleblower" who intended to expose corruption. The police allege that Kulkarni approached Amar Singh's Samajwadi Party an ally of the Congress-led government at the time of the vote to offer bribe to BJP lawmakers. The police alleged Kulkarni had then got a television channel to secretly film the alleged bribe giving in order to nail the government.

The "BBC News" had stated: "He is the sixth person to be arrested in the case. He denies any wrongdoing. The most high-profile arrest so far has been of MP Amar Singh who is charged with offering cash to other MPs to abstain from a 2008 confidence vote."

In England, documentation and stories of vote buying and vote selling are also well known. The most famous episodes of vote buying came in the 18th century England when two or more aristocrats spent whatever the money it took to win. The "spendthrift election" came in Northamptonshire in 1768, when three earls each spent over £100,000 on their favoured candidates.