PM, the biggest winner of the trust vote

V FOR VICTORY: Singh emerged as the biggest winner despite the Opposition targeting him on personal level.

                

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For the first time in the history of Indian Parliament MPs went to the well of the House and showed wads of money and alleged that they were being bribed to vote for the Government. Some also alleged that there were many inducements like ministerial berths for ministers who face murder charges. However, the PM said that his party will work in accordance with the law in the cash for vote scam.

“Here is a man who stands on a high pedestal and talks about bringing India into the world. But he has done a greater disservice to the Indo-US nuclear deal by wrapping it in a certain amount of disrepute. A normal foreign policy issue is now all about duplicity, deceit and corruption,” Das Gupta said.

However, Adhikari said, “I wonder if the world will react in the same way as Swapan. It is kind of ridiculous when we say cash was exchanged. I mean come on, this has been happening for decades. It may have done in a dramatic manner but there is a thing called presumed innocence. There is a charge but let the authorities examine it. Till then let us not say that so-and-so is tainted or the victory is tainted. Give the PM a break, I mean he has won a terrific victory.”

The spectacle of money being poured out of bags in Parliament shows that may be this is something that is endemic to Indian politics.

“Yes, that is true,” said Chowdhury and then added, “I was sitting with a former MP in the Central Hall of Parliament when all this was happening and he got a call from his daughter and the first thing she told her father was that he should never fight another election again. So the perception of the people now is that this is the worse thing that one can be in.”

“Neerja is right. Perception is all important in this age of audio-visual media,” Adhikari said.

Experts on the show agreed that politics is floating on cash but they said that what the country needs to do is constructively establish transparency and accountability. There also needs to be an open procedure through which politicians can access funds.

“We have very outdated campaign finance laws. Campaign financing in this age of television is extremely expensive. Let us have transparent rules on that,” Adhikari said.

But Das Gupta said that the laws are not too bad. “In fact the law is quite generous. The problem is that we have too much of a cash economy. Fault lies in the public culture.”