The ‘Game’ for Regional Parties-2019
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 6th Feb. 2019
The Regional Parties and their Netas are facing unprecedented heat in follow-up to general elections 2019. The National parties are expanding at a faster clip and it while governments are getting trounced in states, especially in the smaller states i.e. a bit away from public eye. What however remains is in limbo is continuance of structural fallacy in government agency on ‘maintenance of democracy and federalism. What is also seen is selective action of financial defaulters and fraudsters, who are frequently abetted for subverting government actions and influencing agencies. In a way ‘the Chickens have come home to the Roost’, and are threatening it. This is even when some of the Netas have been elected with ‘Game’ support and some may be ‘recent converts’ to ‘Game’. Given that public has turned ‘Game’, it is pertinent that these parties explore ways to address the concerns are else get wiped out, in all possibility. And then they would have a ‘late realization’ that ‘Game’ is all about reaching out to public in a fair manner, rather than just the ‘Game theory’ and being in government is a significant advantage, if devised properly.
In fact it might be a good idea that these Regional parties collectively raise a demand that there should be a permanent commission manned by retired Supreme Court Judges to monitor cases of large financial defaulters. The investigations itself may be carried out by SIT or CBI or EOW etc. but officers monitoring the cases cannot be shuffled by Dept. of P&T or any other government agency without express permission of the judges monitoring the progress of the case/s. The large financial defaulters may be defined as defaults over a certain threshold say INR 500 Crores (can be revised every 5 years for inflation) and above and these may be default to any public financial institutions like Banks or directly to public by say companies like Chit Funds, Investment cos., Real Estate Firms, Corporates, Para-banks, Agri-units like Cane buyers, by Mining firms paying royalty/dues etc. This is because such defaulters are in a position to influence elections with their money which in turn also impacts the investigations. The author doesn’t agree with just Central Bank handling the defaults in banking especially the large defaulters as this remains mired in controversy/in cloud. The agencies handling public finance institutions like Banks, Cooperatives, etc. should report such defaults or even perception of such defaults in seamless manner which again would be subject to monitoring/audit by the proposed commission. This would hopefully fill an important institutional gap in the democratic/federal structure.
The facts are there for the Netas in these Regional parties to see the writing on the wall. That the commercial news media has seldom raised any noise around these defaulters (though may have gone after the bank/ers sanctioning the loans or even political influence) or in a way ‘manage’ public behavior by putting selective arguments and ignoring merit of others. An investigation under monitoring by the court would probably be able to dispel influence of the government as well as pressure from the commercial news media, and hopefully publics reeling under regular cheating, would have somewhat better ‘protection’ where the fraudsters and criminals actually feel the threat. That would also tame the larger parties/Netas to rely more of ‘ideology’ rather than money/muscle power. In any case, they might be battling pressure from Center (on account of direct transfers/others), or fake promises, Jumlas around central-state harmony etc. etc. among other things. However in absence of such a structure, the smaller Netas would perhaps always remain under pressure and be manipulated in the quest for ‘power’. The ‘structural balance’ that is people friendly may certainly look like a good idea hopefully. Let the ‘Game’ evolve….