Showing posts with label CPM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CPM. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

How political parties raise funds, officially

The Indian National Congress is going to fund itself by building a corpus, which is the largest one among the Indian political parties. Congress had generated funds through selling coupons when other political parties relied on voluntary donations. Other major sources of income for the parties analysed for last two years were "Levy" for CPM and receipt from sale of coupons for NCP, reports The Indian Express.

The Indian National Congress has taken the next step in politics by moving away from the old era of donations to fund its activities to one of selling coupons to build up a corpus – the largest one among parties in India.

Congress sold coupons worth Rs 600 crore to generate funds during 2007-09 while most of the other political parties were dependent on voluntary donations for fund raising.

The oldest political party, Congress, generated Rs 598.4 crore during 2007-08 and 2008-09 through the sale of coupons while it received donations of Rs 72 crore. The party also generated Rs 38 crore as interest during the period, reveal income tax returns filed by the party.

Funds for Bharatiya Janta Party were mainly sourced from voluntary donations during the period which amounted to Rs 297.7 crore while interest of Rs 21.29 crore and "Ajiwan Sahyog Nidhi" were the other sources.

Bahujan Samaj Party also relied on "contributions" of Rs 202.94 crore while membership and interest worth Rs 43.20 crore and Rs 5.18 crore contributed respectively, the data received by Association of Democratic Reforms, a voluntary group, through RTI revealed.

Other major sources of income for the parties analysed for 2007-08 and 2008-09 were "Levy" for CPM Rs 46 crore and receipt from sale of coupons for NCP Rs 50 crore, it shows.

Major expenditure of the Congress party during the period was incurred on election -- Rs 215 crore -- while on publicity it spent early Rs 58 crore. The party also distributed aid worth Rs 56 crore to "others".

The BJP spent maximum funds worth Rs 89.16 crore on advertising and publicity while the BSP made purchases worth Rs 85 crore on immovable properties.

During the period, Congress has declared the "maximum aggregate income" of Rs 718 crore followed by BJP which has declared assets worth Rs 344 crore and BSP Rs 252 crore, it said.

Mayawati's BSP has shown maximum growth in terms of total income of Rs 69.74 crore in 2007-08 to Rs 182 crore in 2008-09 which is nearly 161 per cent while NCP shows a growth of nearly 130 per cent followed by Congress which shows an increment of 125 per cent.

Communist Party of India is the only party whose income dipped during the period. From Rs 1.24 crore in 2007-08, the income of the party has dipped to Rs 1.16 crore in 2008-09 which is a decline of 6.45 per cent.

Read the article on Miracle Of Democracy.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Former Speaker of Lok Sabh, Somnath Chatterjee, talks about the state of Indian politics

One comrade had said that Manmohan Singh will get up when we ask him to get up, he must sit down when we ask him to. There is no generation gap in CPM.But they have their own ideas about their own importance, about their thinking or their inevitably being right, says Somnath Chatterjee to Shekhar Gupta.

Read the whole article here.

Excerpts:

Shekhar Gupta: My guest this week is a titan of Indian politics, Mr Somnath Chatterjee. Congratulations for your forthcoming book, Keeping the Faith: Memoirs of a Parliamentarian.

Somnath Chatterjee: You know I have been a member of the Lok Sabha 10 times. So many things have happened, I have met so many people and I have delivered over 500 major speeches.

So you did become a Communist at heart.

Well, I became and I still am, though I may not meet all the requirements that probably a hardcore Communist feels I should have.

Such as?

You have rubbed shoulders with so many great Communist leaders. Name some of the leaders who influenced you the most.

Jyoti Basu, Pramod Dasgupta, Benoy Chowdhury, Hare Krishna Konar, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, EMS (EMS Namboodiripad) and AKG (A K Gopalan). They all influenced me a lot. AKG was a perfect Communist leader.

On the nuclear deal, you have written that you were closer to the Left. But you didn’t feel so strongly that you would pull down the government for this?

It was not in my authority to pull down but I felt that the party should consider the situation. The (nuclear) agreement had not been entered into. Just because they had gone to Vienna or IAEA for discussion, they thought enough is enough.

But you also say in the book that the proximity (CPM leaders) had with the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi gave them an exaggerated sense of their image.

Yes, because they came to realise that their ‘yes’ was essential for the government to take a decision, their ‘no’ was enough to put it in cold storage. Somebody had said—I am not naming that very important comrade—that Manmohan Singh will get up when we ask him to get up, he must sit down when we ask him to. What is the mentality behind it?

Did the CPM suffer from a generation gap with suddenly much younger leaders coming in?

No, I don’t think there should be any generation gap. But they have their own ideas about their own importance, about their thinking or their inevitably being right.

In the book, you talk about what you describe as the ‘other big mistake’, of trying to form a third front coalition with Mayawati, Mulayam Singh and others.

It was disastrous. It was a comic attempt.

And Mayawati as the likely prime minister?

One of the Left leaders said she was the fittest candidate to be the Prime Minister.

And that was a blunder?

I think that was contrary to the CPM’s political formulation, ideas and understanding. You can’t just join anybody and everybody.

Do you think you would have made a good President?

I don’t know. Probably I would have made a mess of it, that is why I was not allowed.

But was it ever explained to you why that nod was not given?

No. He came and said we have decided not to suggest any candidate for President. That was fair enough. I asked him, ‘Why have you come to me? Have I told you to make me President? Have I told anybody in this world?’ This upsets me, this type of insinuation.

But you are a political analyst. Can you guess or analyse why the nod was not given?

I don’t know. I don’t want to bring it up because it concerns me.

So that is not something that rankles you?

Not at all. What rankles me is not giving me a show-cause (notice) and that my people have been let down. The people who built up the party... the party workers.