NEW DELHI, Feb 8: Leading trade and industry associations say a flat ``no'' to funding political parties and taking any initiative in creating poll funds on the lines of those created by industrial houses Tatas and Birlas.Though the trade and industry bodies favour evolving a transparent and efficient mechanism to fund various parties, they are are not inclined to intiate such a measure on their own.``A chamber like Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) represents more than 500 associations apart from a host of individual industries throughout the country. As each of them can have a different view in supporting a party based on their ideology or promises, it is difficult to take a position'', a top FICCI official said.
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) deputy director general Manushi Roy said the body has no proposal to set up an election fund on their own as it is not ``our mandate''.
The setting up of separate electoral trusts by the house of Tatas and the Rs 15,000crore Aditya Birla group recently has set off a debate in industry circles on why others cannot attempt a similar move.
Assocham secretary T G Keswani said the Chamber's constitution does not allow contributions to political parties. ``Chambers are apolitical in nature and they are not supposed to contribute to election funds''.
Asked whether CII would set a model by creating an election fund, Roy said the Chamber has highlighted the importance of transparency by asking all its members to pay only though cheques to be reflected in the balance sheets of the companies.
While Tatas have decided to distribute funds based on the past performance of the parties taking into account the number of seats held by them in the Lok Sabha, Birlas have made it clear that the disbursal would be influenced by the geographical location of their units across the country.
Except CII, all the other Chambers questioned the wisdom of companies openly giving donations to meet the campaign expenses of political parties andsaid ``this might boomerang on the business interests of the particular firm later on.''
Assocham president L Lakshman said unlike the US the Indian political system is still not mature enough for industries to declare their preferences based on the agenda declared in the manifestos of parties.
``I would say a strict no for making political choice on behalf of shareholders. What criteria would you adopt,'' he asked.He added that until now none of the parties are serious in their poll documents regarding economic priorities.FICCI said ``there is a vacuum in the mechanism of selecting a particular party by companies''. It also cast doubt over the mechanism proposed by Tata trust based on past performance categorising it as a ``fixed coefficient model''.
For instance, many of the parties that make a difference at the regional and national level had no adequate representation or were absolutely non-existent earlier, he said and cited the case of a dominant party like BJP whose Lok Sabha representation wasin single digit barely a decade back.
Sen favoured state-funding of election but agreed that it will be a complicated process in a multi-party democracy like India. ``We haven't given much thought to the exact modality that could be followed,'' he said.
The Chamber functionaries lauded the curtailing of expenditure in the last two polls adding ``the scale of poll process in the country is unmatched anywhere in the world with over 500 seats at stake spread over a huge geographical area''.
In the run up to elections, the chambers have also become pro-active on the election scene with CII unleashing a multimedia awareness campaign apart from establishing links with political parties at the public policy level.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
