Shadow Correspondent
Jammu, Apr, 21
Alleging unprecedented use of black money and ill gotten wealth during the ongoing Parliamentary elections, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh Chairman JKNPP and former Minister today said that democracy seemed to have lost its meaning and relevance in the country. With several crores being incurred on individual elections especially by the big parties by hiring aircrafts, choppers, chartered planes, engaging film stars and actors for campaigns , purchasing TV channels and media for party publicity and using money power to influence the voters had reduced democracy to a farce. Rather than being a govt “of the people, by the people and for the people”, the present democracy had become a govt “of money, by money and for money”, said Singh. He said that the slogans of ‘level playing field’ and of curbing the use of money power in elections had proved mere hyperboles and used as window dressing for the gullible.
Terming the brazen display of money power in current elections as anti thesis to free and fair elections, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh said that fast changing political narrative in the country only amounted to slow poisoning of democracy. He expressed dismay over the open defiance of expenditure norms of ECI by BJP, Congress and DSS in Udhampur Parliamentary constituency with none to take cognizance. He said that that thousands of buses and matadors were used to ferry passengers to Kathua on April 14th to attend the BJP election rally addressed by Narendra Modi and party candidate Jitendra Singh in which several crores were spent on transport, ‘podiums’, ‘pandals’, chartered planes besides banners, hoardings and other publicity materials and campaigns. Likewise, in the BJP rally addressed by its party chief Amit Shah in Udhampur to canvass for the same candidate, thousands of vehicles had been hired without any accounting having been given for that, said Mr. Singh. Similarly, campaign through helicopters was carried out in all assembly segments by BJP and Congress in which millions and crores were spent without any accountability whatsoever. He divulged that even the DSS candidate from Udhampur spent several crores on his campaign without revealing the sources and without accounting for the same in the Expenditure registers. With democratic rights of the poor opponents having been guillotined by use of illegitimate money, Mr. Singh said that PM Modi’s slogan of ushering clean politics had proved to be yet another ” Chunavi Jumla”. ” It is irony that black money was being used in the country to elect white collared politicians”, lamented Harsh.
