BENGALURU: Terming the Electoral Bonds issue as the “biggest scam in the world”, considering the quantum of funds involved, political economist Parakala Prabhakar said the BJP government’s claim of transparent political funding did not hold water. He spoke of crony capitalism as a major corruption issue, and said the PM Cares Fund is also a scam.
Asked about PM Narendra Modi’s explanation of the Electoral Bonds, he said, “If it is about transparency in political funding, why didn’t the government tell the people about it since 2018, since when it has been in force. Why did the petitioners have to go to the highest court, the Supreme Court, to find out the truth, and why did the government ask for time till elections were over, before presenting the details?’’
“Why I called it the biggest scam in the world is not just because of the money exchanged, it was a ‘money dance’ involving thousands of crores of rupees given in exchange for contracts, and to stop Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax raids. Had the raids been pursued, they would have unearthed hundreds and thousands of crores."
"You can imagine what the country has lost in terms of contracts, and there is the issue of money laundering. Just look at the companies -- those which were not making profits and those making losses also paid up, how did they get the money? It means there was a lot of money laundering within the Electoral Bonds scheme also, which has astonished me more."
"The institution which is supposed to be fiercely independent, the Reserve Bank of India, was also pressurised to accept and relax rules and regulations. After EBs were bought, regulations were relaxed, which means that even RBI was compromised. Also, there were Production Linked Incentives (PLI) for errant pharma companies,” Parakala Prabhakar said.
On the PM Cares Fund, he said those who seek details are told it has nothing to do with the government, and doesn’t fall under it. “All government employees were made to donate one day’s salary, public sector undertakings were asked to give money and now the government is not telling us where is it getting money from, how much has been collected, how much does the government spend, and on what. Nothing is known, and if this can happen in a democratic country, I have very serious apprehensions. This is probably going to be an even bigger scam,” he said.
On Karnataka’s complaint of stepmotherly treatment in devolution of funds and grants from the Union government, he said the BJP government has no belief in the federal structure and the way it treats states and chief ministers in the GST Council and NITI Aayog, shows its discrimination. It happens with states where non-BJP governments are in power. They tell people to elect the BJP and “double-engine sarkar” to get money due to them. This is very detrimental and dangerous, Prabhakar added.
Crony capitalism can be summarised in one sentence: You give 5kg of foodgrains to poor people, and give five airports to your friend. You can tell the poor you are looking out for them. This is happening with many public sector undertakings, and airports and assets are given to ‘friends’, he said.