‘Liquor flooded the roads and currency notes fell like hailstorm...’ 

Forum of Good Governance seeks inquiry into alleged indiscriminate flow of money, liquor during recent Munugode bypolls

The Forum for Good Governance (FGG) has written to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), urging him to take note of and order an inquiry into the largescale spending of money and distribution of liquor during the recent Munugode byelection and alleged that close to ₹627 crore was spent by the “main contenders”.

Breaking down the numbers, FGG secretary M. Padmanbha Reddy, in a press release, said ₹152 crore was spent at the rate of ₹9,000 per vote assuming 75% of the 2.25 lakh voters had been paid money, liquor consumed was worth ₹300 crore, expenditure on rallies cost ₹50 crore with 50 rallies at ₹2.5 crore per meeting or rally and another ₹50 crore expenditure incurred by the Ministers and MLAs.

The “two main parties” in the fray had purchased local leaders like sarpanches and others before the election notification with the media highlighting the price tag and crossover details. All the press clippings have been shared with the chief electoral officer but unfortunately, no serious action was taken. Munugode people were “corrupted” to the maximum extent with “liquor flooding the roads” and “currency notes falling like hailstorm” with the Returning Officer (RO) or the large number of observers “closing their eyes”, alleged Mr. Reddy.

The FGG secretary said there was enough evidence to show on television how people had demanded money and the political parties had obliged. In some villages, the people were sitting on road carrying placards ‘no money, no vote’ and up to 2 p.m., no polling took place. Ultimately, when their demand for money was met from the political parties, polling started around 3 p.m. and went up to 11 p.m. In some villages, there was a ‘dharna’ by people when they realised people of adjoining village got ₹5,000 per vote while they got just ₹3,000 a vote.

People were openly coming before cameras and stating that the first party had given them ₹3,000 per vote and then the second party had approached them and paid ₹4,000. The first party again approached them and paid another ₹2,000 and thus, in all, it came up to ₹5,000 a vote. Many people agree to have received ₹5,000 a vote from one party and ₹4,000 a vote from another party. In this manner, the people of Munugode had sold their votes at ₹9,000 a vote apart from getting copious liquor and food, he claimed.

During rallies and meetings, the political parties gather people by paying ₹300 per day plus biryani and liquor taking it to ₹500 per person and caste wise meetings too were held providing lavish food and drink. The Chief Minister had deployed all this MLAs and 14 ministers in the election work, allotting one or two villages to each, while he himself allegedly took charge of one such region. Government employees, including personal assistants and security personnel, were also there along with the Ministers and MLAs spending a lot of money, said Mr. Reddy.

The government wanted to give ₹1.3 lakh to each of the shepherd community to purchase sheep and deposited the same in their accounts but this was frozen only when the FGG took the issue to the notice of the Election Commissioner (EC), he said. There have been instances of Ministers caught on camera serving liquor to voters but this was not taken cognisance of by the RO, he added. Another Minister was allegedly caught threatening voters about welfare programmes being stopped if voters didn’t vote for the official candidate.