<b>Story in numbers:</b> A story of money and power

Budget promised some changes in funding of political parties and MLAs, via bonds to ensure anonymity

In the unending cycle of elections, what motivates people to contest these? Fame? Commitment to public service? Power? 

All of the above.  But, as the figures show, also money.

Take Goa. It is a small state, with a 40-seat Assembly. The size of constituencies is small and everyone knows everyone. The largest constituency, Vasco, has just over 35,000 voters and the smallest, St Andre, has 20,834. Literacy levels are high, the population is young and victories and defeats are marked by small margins. But, the average increase in assets of MLAs is huge. 

In Punjab, the situation is no different. The average assets of 94 re-contesting MLAs in Punjab have jumped by about Rs 3 crore in the past five years (2012-2017). This could be the result of professional earning. It could also be something else.

The 2017-18 Budget promised some changes in the funding of political parties and eventually MLAs, via bonds to ensure anonymity. But, as Fellow of the Carnegie Endowment, Milan Vaishnav, who has done seminal work on money and muscle in Indian politics, noted: "If a mining conglomerate, for instance, decided to bankroll a party in Goa (with the intention of buying goodwill in exchange for regulatory benefits down the road) through bonds, the voters of Goa would be none the wiser. Furthermore, will donors truly believe their identity will remain anonymous? Will banks be honest stewards of this information? Only when we have data on take-up of these bonds will we be able to assess the effectiveness of this measure". Meanwhile, elections continue to be a sure-shot way of getting rich quickly, data suggest.

Data: Association for Democratic Reforms