Five Indian states are going to the polls. Prior to that, an exercise under the name of Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls has been undertaken to exclude names of many genuine Indian citizens and bona fide voters who are identified to possibly cast vote against the ruling BJP. But this is over and above the prevailing practice of manipulating election results by using money-muscle-media administrative power. So, despite tall claims of India being the ‘biggest democracy’, the farce of election is so vividly exposed.
Bourgeois Election Politics and Money Spilling
The ruling monopolists decide, in the words of Great Lenin, “once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament — such is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary-constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics.” (State and Revolution) and to materialize that, what they depend on most is money. A tiny portion of amassed fabulous money is apportioned to fund the party or parties of their choice to ensure that the government formed after the poll is to their choice and subservience. Hence the monopoly houses and multi-nationals “stimulate” the party or combination of their choice so that they, after ascending the throne, offer undue facilities to them in return. Similarly, hoarders, black marketers, black money holders and big realty promoters flourishing under the blessings of ruling bourgeoisie also provide money to the parties who, they know, are managers of oppression and loots by the oligarchs and tycoons. Hence governments of such parties would not come in the way of their illegal activities and wrongdoings. Earlier, corporate donations to political parties were kept secret. But the BJP has made such transactions virtually official by introducing the ‘electoral bond’ system where both donors and donees are veiled in secrecy.
Anyone with minimum intelligence could understand that this Bond scheme, absolutely opaque in nature, was nothing but a conduit for pumping in corporate money, mostly black, to the coffers obviously of those parties who are trusted by the industrial houses as subservient to their sinister class interest. And now that has been proved beyond doubt. Exposure shows BJP as the major beneficiary of Rs 16,518.11 crore bonds sold. The details which have been in the public domain indicate that this Electoral Bond Scheme might prove to be the largest scam in independent India. As per available figures, of the total bonds sold amounting to Rs 16,518.11 crore, the ruling BJP is reported to have garnered Rs 8,250 crores which is nearly 57% of the funds disbursed between 2017-2018 and 2022-2023.
And how is that money used to either lure or terrorize the electorates? First of all, following inexorable law of capitalism, inequality is soaring sky high. 95% Indians are facing rising pauperization, while 248 billionaires (as of the 2025 report), have a combined wealth of approximately Rs 98 lakh crore, i.e., 1/3rd of GDP. On the other hand, extreme poverty (a condition where individuals or households are unable to meet the minimum basic necessities required for survival, such as adequate food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare) has remained persistently high, during the years of BJP rule. In the 2025 Global Hunger Index (GHI), India is ranked 102nd out of 123 countries. With a score of 25.8, the country’s hunger situation is classified as” serious”. So, acute crisis and misery in the life of the toiling masses is rising unabated. People have seen that all governments irrespective of hue and colour of the flag, deceive and deprive them more and more. Before election, the bourgeois leaders and parties, craving for power, feign to be so eager to serve the people and give many hollow promises to deceive people. After election, all those promises vanish in the blue. When asked, the power-monger bourgeois leaders say nonchalantly that such gimmicks are necessary to win election. The people feel cheated and say in a frustrated voice that ‘he who goes to Lanka, becomes Ravana’. Such has been going on for long.
Bereft of political consciousness and education, these unorganized people are helpless, hapless. They do not know that they are not supposed to be objects of pity of the governments nor are they to capitulate before the red eyes of the vote-based political parties. So, they presume their distress and hardship are fait accompli. They also know that come election, the bourgeois parliamentary parties would come out with bagful of money and distribute cash and food in the areas inhabited by the poor people, in the slums and shanties. They also view casting vote as a simple ritual, nothing more than that. So, these oppressed millions think that since they are anyhow not going to get anything later, let them grab whatever crumbs are thrown by these power-mongers before election. And whomever they vote is immaterial as all are same, not bothered about common people’s predicament. So, they line up for getting cash and kind distributed before election. Taking advantage of such haplessness of the have-nots, vote is purchased by money. One or ten votes are bought by thousands of rupees. And then there are doles and freebies on offer. In fact, the vote-based bourgeois petty-bourgeois parties are now competing each other as to who could lure the downtrodden more with offers of better perks from the public exchequer and corner their votes. It bears recall that our hon’ble BJP PM once called this practice of giving doles as ‘rewdi politics’. But no, he and his party is on the forefront in doling out pre- and post-election freebies.
A Huge Amount of Money Streams into Election
Now about how the administration remains an indulgent onlooker. According to the rule, the maximum limit on expenses of each contesting candidate is Rs 95 lakh for a Lok Sabha constituency and Rs 40 lakh for an Assembly constituency. But there is no ceiling of expenditure that a political party can defray in the elections. Rulebook says every political party has to submit its income and expenditure report after every election. But such mandates are in effect applicable only for smaller parties while the mainstream vote-based parties enjoy an unwritten exemption. ‘Association of democratic Rights’ (ADR) has found in its survey that total funds collected by 5 national and 27 regional political parties during last parliamentary amounted to a total of Rs 7,445.566 cr. Of this, as high as Rs 6,268.006 cr or 84.18% of the total funds went to the BJP. 32 National and Regional parties together spent Rs 3,352.81 cr during the Lok Sabha and assembly elections 2024, of which Rs 2204.318 cr (65.75%) was spent by the 5 National Parties. These are all available figures. Unavailable figure would be several times more. Election expenses include campaigning expenditure in various forms. Besides these, as stated above, a lump sum of money is used for, to state in appropriate language, bribing the voters.
The BJP rule has virtually turned the country into a land where unbridled loot of monopoly capital is on the rise. Almost all state-owned enterprises – railways, oil, gas, banks, insurance, airports, mountains, forests, mines – the wealth of the country, the wealth of the people, are handed over to the corporates in a silver platter.
Even business tycoons receive money from the state fund as well in different forms—sometimes as a grant, sometimes as a package, sometimes loan waivers.
Recently, the Tata group got the clearance to set up two semiconductor plants in BJP-ruled Gujarat and Assam. The central government has announced to bear 50% of the capital expenditure of these factories, i.e. Rs 44,203 crore. Within a few days, 15 companies of the Tata group gave Rs 915 crore to the Progressive Electoral Trust of which, Rs 758 crore went to the kitty of the BJP. Therefore, Tata group filled its bag with Rs 44,000 crore from the government fund against contributing Rs 758 crore to the BJP’s fund. Examples are galore.
Let not People Fall Prey to this Dirty Politics
The capitalists run their business with the help of their managers. The ministers have become their political managers, and the bourgeois as well as petty-bourgeois parties their obedient subjects. So, even if the government changes, but the pro capitalist policies do not change. Political funding by corporates is a feature of capitalist system now ailing in its decadent moribund stage. Our appeal to the suffering millions is not to fall a prey to this dirty bourgeois politics but try to acquire necessary political consciousness to understand how they are treated as purchasable community, how they are humiliated as bribe-prone greedy populace and how they are made pawns in the power game of the exploiters and plunderers. So, we thought it necessary to revisit this aspect on the eve of ensuing assembly elections.
